Double Time Trouble
by Skysaber
Summary: Everything went horribly, massively wrong. So Hermione went through time to fix it, although that went arguably worse. So there was nothing left but to try again, and that time ran into errors nobody expected.
1. Chapter 1

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter One

by Skysaber

OoOoO

Welcome to my first venture in HP fanfiction. This prologue was written long before DH came out, and was intended to ignore book 6 as well, in protest for the contents, but would likely have sat on my hard drive forever had not someone on CaerAzkaban brought up the absolutely wonderful idea of Hermione attending St Trinian's, a parody of English schools where everything is as screwed up as it is possible to imagine, and it might even be more dangerous than Hogwarts. And I thought, 'you know? I've got the perfect intro for that, one harsh enough to make her *want* to disrespect all authority figures, to where she'd actually fit in at St. Trinian's'. But I had enough other ideas going so that wouldn't dominate.

So here you go.

Starts with the standard blend of cliches, then quickly gets folded, spindled and mutilated.

P.S. I positively HATE 'Hermione betrays Harry' stories, and never willingly read them. So I apologize in advance for the first chapter, but it was actually written in protest to those kind of stories, showing how bankrupt they are. Also, it was an excellent way to get the sort of emotional response necessary to bring about the character change needed.

OoOoO

Hermione Granger felt flushed with pride. Never had she felt so important, and her life was more or less devoted to feeling that way, as her parents had been very strict with her growing up that she should use her abilities to their fullest and make the most out of her remarkable mental talents. They'd planned that she should attend Oxford, but she was happier where she was - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, just entering the great hall for the start of term feast for her sixth year.

Ron was also flushed with excitement, and Hermione laughed with him. Over the summer Headmaster Dumbledore had introduced them, along with the rest of the Ministry Crew, into the Order of The Phoenix. Ginny, Luna and Neville had been hesitant at first, their job from the start had been to spy on Harry, report any of his misdeeds, and help Headmaster Dumbledore to control him so they could use The Boy Who Lived more effectively against You-Know-Who.

Harry trailed along behind, obviously still feeling sorry for himself. Honestly! Hermione didn't know why they put up with him sometimes. It was outrageous! Didn't he ever feel anything but gloom and despair?

She privately agreed with what Dumbledore had whispered to her alone on the night they had joined the Order, that Harry was in danger of going dark, and that was why they had to keep an extra close eye on him this year. Well, Hermione would see to that!

Ron agreed with her, but the rest of the Ministry Crew were looking like they felt bad about it, shooting guilty looks toward Harry when they glanced his way at all. Hermione huffed in self-important pride, knowing that SHE wouldn't be so weak!

The feast began once they'd taken their accustomed places, all but Harry who took a plate away from the Gryffindor table to go and sit by the fireplace on the floor. Hermione thought of the scathing things she could tell Dumbledore about that.

So the feast continued until the end, when the Headmaster stood up to gain the attention of his school. Hermione smirked inwardly, knowing what this announcement was to be. Lucius Malfoy had been pardoned by the Ministry and was going to be their new DADA teacher this year. The school gasped, yet the bushy-haired Granger knew it was because Draco's father had offered to turn spy for Dumbledore in return for being released and given this position.

Then the Headmaster got to the interesting part, announcing a duel was to take place there in the great hall. No one else had warning, but Hermione and Ron had been practicing for this, tutored all summer long for it by Snape, Minerva, Tonks and Dumbledore. This was where they'd show the school there was more to the Side of Light than just Harry Potter!

Professor McGonagall got up to announce the pattern of the duels. The best four from each house would fight one contest against each other in-house, then the winners would go on to duel against each other to show who was the best in the school.

Hermione's duel was first, against Harry Potter. It was her job to eliminate him quickly so that the rest of the students would lose some of their worshipful respect for him, not that they still had many whose senses were clouded by the fame of The Boy Who Lived, but according to Dumbledore it was best if those who still gazed starry-eyed at Harry stopped, and got woken up to his flaws. Hermione assumed her position in the center of the room with wand raised and face cool and poised, thinking she looked every inch the professional.

Harry uncurled from his seat on the stone hearth of the fireplace, depressed as always. For a long second, watching him slouch his way, dragging himself around the Gryffindor table to the cleared space in the center of the room for his duel, Hermione had a pang of doubt. This was Harry? Her best friend? She attempted to squash an impulse to go over and hug him to try and make things alright, but a tiny flicker still nagged her.

Her faith in Dumbledore held her firm, but she winced as she saw fresh bruises on Harry's neck and cheek. He'd been left with those relatives of his all summer, and she suspected that they'd learned those threats of Moody and the others had been all bluffs. They hadn't been meant to be so, but Dumbledore had protected the Dursleys from any reprisals for their actions when they'd started beating and starving Harry again.

The Granger girl swallowed, suddenly no longer feeling quite so good about herself. She could tell that Harry had suffered badly this summer from the stiff way he moved his arms. In fact, she suspected they'd been broken and hadn't healed right, and felt guilty that she and Ron had stayed in the Prefect's carriage and avoided him on the train.

Harry got to where McGonagall told him to stand and finally raised his gaze from the floor. Hermione felt rooted to the spot. He knew! She could see it in his eyes, the unfriendliness and distrust. Somehow he'd been told. Someone must have informed him, because he knew! He knew that she'd chosen Dumbledore and the Order over him.

His eyed stripped away her self-important pretensions, and she knew that she'd betrayed him. She'd done it because she'd trusted Dumbledore, and that's what the headmaster had wanted, but it was no less a betrayal for all of that. A tiny corner of her winced, knowing that her job as spy was compromised. But the rest of her just felt awful.

Harry walked stiffly, like a zombie, and Hermione had to wonder how many of his bones had been broken over that summer. Probably fixed up by Madam Pomfrey on the train, too. Hermione had known she'd been there, but hadn't thought to question the Headmaster as to why.

Hermione stood frozen stiff and sick to her stomach, unable to move because of what she realized. That Harry had been her friend once, her first one actually, and now she had joined the side that had caused this to happen to him, had promised to help them do more of this to him, and by doing so she now shared some of responsibility for the abuse he'd suffered as a product of their actions.

It made her feel ugly and worthless.

Professor McGonagall signaled for the duel to begin but Hermione couldn't move, fixed by those eyes of Harry's like a bird seeing a snake, paralyzed by her own realization of guilt.

Harry began to laugh.

Then, as if he wasn't even in a duel (which, since Hermione couldn't move, he wasn't) The Boy Who Lived proceeded to give an account of his summer, then his whole life. He went on at length about how he had been tortured and brutalized, betrayed and shunned. Not only had he been mocked and ridiculed by his aunt and uncle, but by the wizarding world. He spilled the whole tale of how Dumbledore had arranged for The Boy Who Lived to never live a day in his life without fear. First there was his relatives who openly hated him, but even here at school Snape abused him beyond what any rational Headmaster could have allowed. Then there were of course the yearly attempts on his life, but those came as almost a relief to the daily contempt and hate. Over summers his keepers, his jailers to use his term, forced him into contact with those who abused him, protected them and punished him so they could get away with cruel abuse most people wouldn't tolerate for animals.

Hermione knew the stories, most of them anyway, but to hear this broken young man lay those tales of horror out one after another she realized something that had never struck her before - this was Harry's life! He didn't get to go home from this! He had no refuge from it. There weren't ever any breaks!

He had to live this all of the time. He had no one could he talk to or rely on, no parents or friends to make it better or understand him, no place he could go for safety, no time off and any attempt to escape was punished by those who supposedly protected him. Yet those 'protectors' actually spent their efforts making sure those who hurt him got away with it!

Those like Snape and the Dursleys, and now including her.

She'd despised him for being weak! However, that life he led would've broken her within days! The school was sitting stunned, in various degrees of shock and revulsion. Hermione's wand arm fell to her side and her knees felt weak. She'd participated in this? She done what she had power to do to make this worse ever since Dumbledore started to recruit her to his cause.

Her loyalty and trust of her Headmaster wavered over her sense of revulsion at being a part of this, having planned and acted to make this worse than it already was.

Harry did nothing to show that he cared. At that moment, seeing how he stood and how bad and broken he appeared, Hermione suddenly realized what he looked like. Harry looked exactly like Sirius Black after escaping from Azkaban. And she'd been appointed one of the guardians over Harry's private hell to keep her former best friend chained to it; to aid Dumbledore in making certain Harry never escaped from the suffering they gave him.

Hermione wanted to throw up.

She felt worse when Ron began laughing from the Gryffindor table. The redhead really had an amused sound to his voice when he called out to Harry, "So what?" Ron stood and pelted his former friend with a bread roll. Hermione wanted to die with shame when Ron taunted. "So who cares, Harry? So what if you're the most messed up sleezeball this side of a mortuary? You look like you belong in a tomb, anyway. Who cares if Dumbledore has given you a messed up life, or if your parents are dead? Boo Hoo! If I had your kind of cash there's no way I'd let it bother me. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself and trying to make us pity you for being so famous, rich and so on. Sheesh, you'd think you'd never had a good day in your life from the way you're whining!"

"He hasn't," Hermione whispered, thinking at that moment that all she'd want was to sink down into the stones of the floor and hide from how ashamed she felt.

Harry's smile was both grim and scary as he let the bread roll hit him without reaction. "You know something, Ron?" Even Ronald Weasley looked scared at how demented Harry's expression became. He looked like a lunatic.

~And who can blame him?~ Hermione thought.

Harry pointed to his scar, emphasizing what he tried so often to hide. "Do you see this? It isn't some decorative mark, you know. Do you want to know what this really is?" Harry turned around so that he could see the faces of the entire school. They were frightened, and with good reason. This wasn't some meek Harry like they were used to dealing with, this was something awfully similar to a demented, mass killer.

~We've finally broken him at last,~ Hermione thought guiltily. ~He really did have a breaking point, and by turning on him and joining his enemies I helped push him over it.~ Because she could no longer kid herself, Dumbledore and his friends were no friends of Harry's.

Harry went on, ignoring her as if she didn't exist, talking so his words spread over the crowd. "This mark on my face isn't a scar, that's just the outward sign. This is a curse, specifically, it is the Avada Kedavra curse that Voldemort tried to kill me with when I was one year old. It has lodged there, a fragment getting stuck inside me when most of that spell got reflected and destroyed Voldemort's body. A fraction always lingered on in here. And you know what else? For fifteen years that bit of Avada Kedavra has been growing stronger, feeding off my magic until a hundred wizards all casting it together couldn't be as powerful as this spell stuck in my forehead. It can reach anywhere, go through anything."

People were shrinking back in their seats, even Draco looked terrified.

Harry didn't care. He laughed. "And you know what else? I've learned that I can release it at any time, just by deciding to. I can hit Voldemort from miles away - anywhere on this earth! There's no way that he can hide, no where he can run, nothing can protect him. All I have to do is decide to kill him and he's gone forever, and not all of his spells or immortality rituals could save him."

Dumbledore stood up from his chair at the high table, eyes twinkling. "Then please do so, Harry. After all, we could use a cause for celebration."

Harry's laugh was bitter, and he spat. "No doubt." He laughed bitterly until his weakened body shook. "No doubt you could, old man. But you are missing something." Harry put a finger to his scar and tapped it, once. "This has only a single shot. It can't miss, and it can't be blocked, nothing can escape it, but I don't want to use it on anything less than my most important target."

Dumbledore looked confused. "But surely the man who killed your parents, who has terrorized the whole wizarding world, should be your most important foe, should he not? I can't think of any other priority you should be considering, Harry."

Harry shook his head, and Hermione realized that he really was insane. He'd been driven mad by all that had been done to him. A wounded animal tormented until its mind broke.

"No, old man." Harry ground out between his teeth, body shaking from both weakness and rage. "No. You see, I've experienced what you wizards call gratitude." He motioned in disgust towards Ron, but his wave took in Malfoy and all of the rest of those present. "And I have to say Voldemort would have treated me kinder. All he wanted to do was kill me. A quick death. You, however, have seen to it that I've never lived a day without fear. You put me where I was openly hated, gave your blessing to those that abused me, mocked and ridiculed me for being nothing more than a boy you all owed your lives to. No, old man..."

Hermione had never seen Harry hate anyone before. She saw it now as he pieced the Headmaster with a demented gaze.

"No."

Dumbledore sat down carefully, looking white. "Harry, everything I did for you I chose for your best interests, for the greatest good..."

Hermione realized that Dumbledore was worried Harry might choose to target him with that spell. And glancing to and fro in fright she saw that he had a reason to be so afraid. Harry might. In fact it looked probable.

Harry was still shaking with anger. "No. I've only waited this long so I could tell you why, so that you could know what chose my target for me. You see, I know that I could save you all. I could kill this dark wizard you're all so scared of just by deciding to. But then what would happen to me? I've been through that before, old man. You might party for a week, or even two. You'd hold me up for a hero for a month or so. But then some inept creep in the Ministry would be jealous of me once more, scared of my fleeting popularity, and you'd go ahead doing all you've done before, and the articles would start eating away at any lingering good will people held toward me. It wouldn't be even a year before you'd all decide that I was too much of a threat to live, and I'd either be sent off to Azkaban or Obliviated and sent back to live among my magic-hating muggle relatives forever. You'd take away everything I am just so that you could sleep feeling safe - that I'd never be able to seek revenge for all you've done to me." Harry shook his head. "No, old man. I realized this summer that your plan has always been to use me up and throw me away."

Dumbledore was showing iron control as he tried to soothe Harry. "Now Harry, however much you hate me, there are your friends to consider. Do you want them to live a life under Voldemort's reign? Do you want to live there yourself? I guarantee it would be much more terrible than anything you've suffered before."

~No.~ Hermione thought, looking at her broken former friend. ~It couldn't. How could it? Dumbledore had just said that to a small boy who'd had all three Unforgivable curses cast on him already by that same Dark Wizard he was supposed to fear. His daily life was out of a horror story and he had no one and nothing on his side.~

~What was left to do to him?~

"Friends." Harry ground out the word. "What friends?" He stalked a menacing step forward and slashed an arm to indicate Ron. "Don't you mean that? And that?" He slashed another arm toward Hermione, who was cringing on the dueling platform where she stood. "I used to have friends. Now all I have are spies, informers. You took my friends and made them your agents. Now, just like Snape pretends loyalty to Voldemort so he can spy for you, I have those who pretend friendship so they can help you control me. They have betrayed me, become my jailers. They are yours, not mine. So they mean NOTHING to me!"

Hermione blanched, the school looking at her. She knew they saw the truth of Harry's words and never could have guessed how ugly and worthless that made her feel. All of a sudden she didn't have the respect or admiration of anyone, anyone at all, least of all herself.

~Dumbledore used me,~ she realized, when the Headmaster said nothing in her defense. ~He used me up and now he is throwing me away, just as he's doing to Harry.~

~I was a fool,~ she realized, grief and doubt sickening her insides. The old man had used her own pride in her intelligence to turn her into both a traitor and a fool.

And now she had nothing to be proud of.

Snape had reacted as if stunned by Harry's words. ~Perhaps he was,~ Hermione thought. ~If he was at all sincere about spying for the Light, then it was secrecy that he'd depended on for preserving his life. Now, with Draco and all those other junior Death Eaters there to hear his secret would be in Voldemort's ear inside of an hour.~ In a few choice words Harry had his revenge on Severus Snape. The teacher who had spent years teaching Harry to hate him now had his reward. If Voldemort survived this night then their potions master was doomed. That is, if he was working for the Light. But if he wasn't, if Snape had been working for the Dark all along (which actually seemed far more likely to her), then his cover would be blown just by his mere survival, and then Voldemort might kill him anyway as a pawn that'd outlived its usefulness. That was, if some auror or other didn't get to him first.

And, Hermione had to admit, he'd done everything he could to earn that. Harry had done nothing to him at first, Snape had tortured him verbally for fun. It had amused their sick and twisted professor to hurt the boy whose father had once saved his own worthless life. And now he got to pay by losing that life. It was appropriate.

Hermione wondered what would come when it came her turn.

"Do you honestly believe that I should spend my time caring for a world that has never cared a bit about me?" Harry asked the room bitterly.

~Actually, they once cared for you quite a bit.~ Hermione thought inwardly. ~The wizarding world loved you, until Fudge and Rita Skeeter changed their minds. Of course Dumbledore did nothing to help you, and it seemed he might even have gone along with them. It looks that way now, from how carefully he's always worked to isolate you.~

Harry gave a last laugh at how scared Dumbledore had become. "Oh, don't worry, old man. I have better uses for this curse than to kill you. You see, having this thing lodged in my skull has toughened my body, made me every bit as hard to kill as Voldemort. I don't want to live under his tortures any more than I've liked living under yours, and there's only one thing that can take my life. I get to decide who dies, Dumbledore, and it's either Voldemort or me. And you know what? I hope he reigns for a hundred years. I lay my dying wish as a plague on you all. I curse you that no one who is able to spark a wand will survive Voldemort's reign, and that by the time he dies there won't be a drop of wizarding blood left in Britain, and that no where on this earth will be found even one pureblooded witch or wizard! I leave you all to rot in Hell, and spit my last breath at you!"

And, with that, Harry exploded in a burst of green light over six feet across, consuming that half of the dueling platform and carving a crater in the stone floor.

It was whole seconds before Hermione's stunned brain could comprehend that Harry had used that one-shot unstoppable death curse to kill himself!

~That was how he was to escape the pain and get his revenge on us, all at the same time,~ Hermione thought with a start. ~And it would work. Nothing could stop Voldemort now.~ From the pasty white look of shock on the Headmaster's face it was obvious that Harry's words about nothing else being able to stop Voldemort were true, and that by using that curse on himself Harry had deliberately brought about the worst possible world for the rest of them to live in. ~Now we all get to live with that same fear and horror that had always haunted Harry.~

~Harry's life of torture and fear is over, but ours has only just begun.~

~No!~ Something in Hermione screamed out, looking for support. ~Okay, Dumbledore has lost it, the look on his face is quickly fading to despair and hopelessness.~ It became clear to the girl her mentor, the man she'd trusted to save and protect them all, had planned for everything but this; and now the heart of his schemes was obvious.

~This had never been about Dumbledore's fight against Voldemort! The Headmaster hadn't mattered at all,~ Hermione suddenly realized. It was all about Harry. Harry Potter had always been the one, and Dumbledore had used and abused him like Malfoy treated house elves. She watched, shocked, as the old wizard crumpled in on himself, suddenly feeling disgust at the old man herself. There wasn't anything that had changed! He still had the Order, and Hogwarts, and the ministry, and everything he'd had before! Every resource she'd once admired Dumbledore for controlling was still at his command. Yet with the loss of Harry her once beloved Headmaster was collapsing like a ruptured balloon!

~If he'd meant that much you could have treated him nicely!~ Hermione thought in a rage. ~Would it really have been so hard?~

Realizing her own part in this was far from blameless, Hermione suddenly hated that old man Dumbledore, knowing that her own betrayal was only because of his. She'd trusted him! The Headmaster had used her, just like he'd used Harry. She'd been nothing more to him than a way that he could keep an eye on a boy. He should have left Harry Potter alone! All Dumbledore had ever had to do was let Harry live a nice and pleasant life and he would have chosen to slay Voldemort instead of himself! But the bastard couldn't stop meddling! And every time he did something to Harry it ended up causing more pain to him!

Dumbledore didn't have to stick him with a family that openly hated him, give him teachers that abused and hated or tried to kill him, or what was almost worse, all of those others who sat at the sidelines, who might have done something to help Harry if Dumbledore hadn't constantly been holding their leashes so they couldn't. Then at last he'd convinced Harry's friends to desert him, to turn into spies and traitors acting against him.

Why had he been so cruel and unfair?

Shaking herself at his stupidity, which she had unfortunately shared, Hermione gave the first conscious movement since she'd seen Harry's eyes, and reached inside of her blouse to pull out a Time Turner on a long, silver chain. Dumbledore had given them to her and Ron so they could spy more effectively on Harry, who'd taken fewer classes than either of them.

Well, if all hope was lost, it hadn't been that way an hour ago.

Hermione gave her Time Turner enough rotations to bring her back to eleven o'clock that morning. She could run down to Hogsmead and Apparate onto the Hogwarts train, a skill that she had been secretly taught that summer in her Order training. If she spent all that ride with Harry instead of avoiding him maybe she could apologize enough to make a difference - and, realizing that her other option was to live in a world ruled by Voldemort, maybe letting Harry see some forbidden skin was in order, if things came to that.

Anything to make him want to live!

She spun her device the required number of times, and was shocked when, after the spinning and the dizziness, she appeared inside of a Great Hall that was still packed full of students. There was her other self from a few minutes before on her way to the dueling platform where the girl who'd just traveled through time stood! Both Hermione Grangers stood astonished as they stated at each other.

The one from the future realized she must have gone minutes into the past instead of hours. Never mind, Harry was still alive, it was enough. She jumped off of the platform to rush over to Harry Potter, where she flung herself on to his chest and begged him though her tears to forgive her.

The younger Hermione's jaw dropped open in shock.

The Hermione from the future did everything she could think of. She railed against Ron before he could say those hateful things. She defied Dumbledore and criticized herself. She gave away Snape's cover personally and admitted to having betrayed Harry, pleading on her knees that he live for her. But it was all useless, Harry must have made up his mind long before. Not even promising her body to him gave him the slightest pause. He just called her the next Percy Weasley and went on, ignoring how bitterly she cried that he was right. She had turned on him because of her love for authority, just exactly like Percy had turned against all those that loved him because he loved the Ministry more.

The Hermione from the future was only saved from Harry's self-destructive explosion by a summoning charm from McGonagall as the teacher realized at the last moment what was about to happen.

That Hermione hardly cared, weeping bitterly, wishing she'd died.

At last the future girl was approached by her younger self, who seemed amazed to find her older double crying on the floor. The girl from the future looked up at her past self and gave her a hate-filled gaze, much to her younger double's surprise. "He had to live. That's all it took. We would have won if only Harry'd had something, anything to live for! But Dumbledore had to make his life so miserable that he'd rather DIE than save us!"

The Hermione from the past was still shocked, and the older one saw and understood that this one had not gone through those same moments of discovery as she'd realized what she'd done to participate in destroying all hope for their world. This one had been too busy paying attention to her future self and being shocked by her behavior to have really seen Harry, or what he was going through. Or how she'd helped to kill him.

"Surely, he's not all that important." Her younger self doubted in self-important tones.

"Look at Dumbledore," her older double told her in a despairing, strain-filled voice, "And tell me he doesn't think our cause is lost." She watched her younger duplicate get frightened as she studied her Headmaster and realized at last that things were worse than she'd feared.

"Harry was the one, the only one who could stop this. Now the war will go on forever until our side must unavoidably lose. Surely," now she mocked her younger double's self-important tones. "You think that's important?"

Hermione's younger self seemed torn, obviously distressed with how brazenly her older double had thrown herself at Harry, propositioning him before the whole school! But at the same time she was discovering through Dumbledore's despair that her future self's actions may just have been the tiniest bit justified. The older Hermione smirked bitterly as she saw her past self suddenly realize that the war was lost, and what that meant to her personally as well as to her future and all of her friends.

"We've got to stop this!" The younger girl declared desperately.

"How?" Her older self mocked with a sarcastic smirk. "Go back in time?"

The younger girl stared at the older one, suddenly seeing many things at once: Why her older self was there, and that her plot hadn't worked. She steeled herself and spoke. "If I go back to an earlier time..."

"Forget it." Older Hermione's tones were bitter as she stood up. "Do you think I planned for a desperate, last second appeal to Harry in the middle of a hall crowded with his enemies? I tried to set my Time Turner to bring me back to ride the train with him this morning. It sent me back minutes instead of hours and I had to improvise. There's something about how he died that's like an anchor. It's too significant an event for our Time Turners to travel through easily. After all, the fate of our whole world has just been decided, hasn't it? That's not going to be easy to undo. Strictly speaking, it's illegal to even try."

"Hang the law!" Younger Hermione shouted, drawing a brief moment of shocked attention from half the room. "We can't just give up and let this happen! Our whole world is doomed!"

"And what do you propose we do?" Her older double asked of her angrily.

"We'll have to try time travel again," her younger self concluded after a second's deliberation and chewing on her lower lip. "Right now Harry is dead, and there's no magic that can fix that directly. There's no option but to try to go back before it happened."

"Well, you have my script. You saw what good it did me." Her future self mocked.

"Then we'll have to try something earlier! You said the train ride, that was a good idea. Let's try and set some runes to boost the power of our Time Turners so that we can get past the interference of..." the girl swallowed around the lump in her throat as she finally saw just some of what she'd been involved in, "Harry's suicide."

The two girls, one a few minutes older than the other, otherwise identical except for those precious few moments of insight and experiences, set to work laying out the most powerful magic circle Arithmancy had ever taught them, liberally sprinkling that with every rune for time or travel or magical boosting they could think of. They used the widest clear area they could find, which was ironically the crater on the floor left by the blast that had killed Harry. But it was convenient and round, and made for a good base for their circle. Other students and teachers were too distressed or jubilant in their own personal reactions to Harry's death to either interfere or help the pair, and soon both Hermiones stood facing each other in a highly experimental magic ring of questionable sanity. The older one took out her Time Turner and put the long chain over the head of her younger self as well.

"I have my own, you know." Younger Hermione scolded.

"Yes, I do. Now take it out at once and put it on over my head so we're both double-linked. That way the chains can form a figure-eight, which when viewed from the side is the symbol of infinity. If we turn them both at the exact same instant it should boost the spell enough to get one of us back to this morning."

"And if this doesn't work?" The younger girl asked dubiously even as she linked her chain as directed.

"If we die the present will remain unchanged and someone else can give it a go." The older girl stated dispassionately. "In any case, we'll either get this to work or we don't have to live in a world that's lost a war and is going to be enslaved under the worst Dark Wizard in a century. Either way we win. And if we die, but someone else can get our past to change and bring back Harry, then we won't have been driven to this extreme so won't take the risk and so we'll probably be alive in that altered present anyway."

Both girls took a deep breath, and the older one used her wand to spin both their Time Turners in unison to the maximum extent of their abilities.

The flash of light from the circle and wrenching sensations that followed this act were horrible. Hermione saw the last few minutes creep passed backwards in sluglike slowness, passed when Harry died, to see herself trying to save him, then how they'd all entered the hall - herself with that insufferably smug, superior look on her face, then suddenly everything went racing by at lightning speed. She braced for arriving in time for the train, only to see the students leaving the room from the last year's going home feast filling the room in reverse.

The events of the past year raced by in reverse at an increasing rate until finally everything was just a blur that landed with a wet lurch.

Hermione opened her eyes. Why was the world pink? And wet? She turned her head and saw another face looking back at her. It was a baby's, yet somehow managed to express astonishment at seeing her. Holding up her own hand Hermione realized that she was an infant as well. Then something squeezed.

Half an hour later, Helen Granger finished giving birth to beautiful twin girls. Sweaty and breathless, the lady got to hold her darling infants and looked proudly up to her husband. "What do we call them?"

"We'd promised each other that if we had a girl she'd be named Hermione." Her husband's middle name was Menelaus (his parents had been incurable Shakespeare buffs) though he thankfully went by his first name of Richard. Helen of Troy and Menelaus of Sparta were the parents of Hermione in a Shakespearean play, and they'd decided months ago to carry on the naming tradition to a point. The mother did insist her daughter have a normal middle name to fall back on in case schoolyard teasing got too mean.

"They can't both be Hermione." Helen giggled to her beloved, tired yet full of joy.

"Why not?" Her husband teased, pointing first to one and then the other baby girl. "This one can be Hermione Ann Granger and that one can be Hermione Jane Granger." He bent low and kissed both infants held tight to their mother's chest. "Welcome to the world, my dears."

Two Hermiones' eyes met across their mother's belly and both girls thought, ~Oh boy.~

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

When everything is lost is the best time to risk it all, because you've got nothing to lose. But that doesn't mean that anything would turn out normally, especially when you mix in experimental rune circles and guess at magic that no one truly understands.

Hermione basically tore Time, but it is quite resilient, and has a tendency to heal itself, adapting to incorporate changes. The first tear was a comparatively small one, Hermione going back to create a past that led to her not going back to her past in the same way. But the next one was a doozy.

To repair itself, Time simply went ahead and rewrote itself according to a plan where the extras had been there all along. But two Hermiones won't be the only surprise. Tearing Time has a tendency to leave scars. 


	2. Chapter 2

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Two

by Skysaber

OoOoO

Breast milk was delicious, both girls decided. Bottles couldn't compare.

Diapers felt comfy, and mother was warm. Sweaters were itchy, and climbing out of their crib would almost have been more trouble than it was worth if living as a baby wasn't so desperately dull!

At least they got to sleep most of the time while their tiny infant bodies were developing, and when they were awake they got to practice wandless, wordless magic without any distractions. It wasn't easy, but there wasn't much choice, as without that priceless source of mental stimulation they would've gone mad from boredom. Pooping your pants just wasn't very interesting, and bottles probably the most boring food around. But the life of a baby was eating, sleeping and getting diapers dirty.

Whatever it was that had done this to Hermione seemed to have really twinned her, made two identical copies of a girl with sixteen year old memories. Only one of the twins had a few minutes more of life experiences from that terrible night at the welcoming feast. In some ways a few minutes made very little difference, in others they made a vast one. For a start it sent their thoughts that first year pinwheeling off in opposite directions, making for different girls in slight yet subtle ways.

Hermione Jane Granger was the older sister, in both senses of that word. Her younger double, Ann, had a lot of trouble adapting to the fact that she and her future self were now two people instead of one suffering a touch of temporal displacement; and a great deal of her time was spent puzzling over that. It shouldn't have happened, but then neither were they following any of the safe use guidelines of time turners when they'd done it. Jane didn't bother thinking too much about that, as she had other thoughts on her mind. Namely, how to save Harry and prevent a disastrous future.

So, while Ann spent her time on mastering her accidental magic in the form of useful utility spells to summon crackers (which could then be drooled upon to make into a mush soft enough to actually eat), clean (both herself and her surroundings of things like cracker mush or diaper residue when the nanny didn't do too good a job of cleaning up after her and left her in danger of getting a rash), or repair objects (like when she accidentally summoned something too heavy and it fell and broke), Jane spent her time creating shields, stunners, curses, jinxes and so forth - which had the salutary side effect of giving her sister Ann a great deal of practice with her repair charms, cleaning up all of the evidence of Jane shooting off combat magic. The small pock marks left by her beginning blasting hexes were of about the same size as Ann's beginning capacity on her repair charms.

Just like the first time she'd been alive the twins were left with hired help to look after them most of the time. Hermione's parents were busy career professionals who made more than enough money to hire a nanny for them. So, they did. After a brief month long maternity leave with their mother (during which she mostly caught up on her bookkeeping, paying bills and settling accounts) the twins didn't see very much of their parents, only evenings and weekends, and the live-in nanny hired was the same as they got the first time, a girl just out of high school who spent most of each day on the phone or watching the TV.

The girls could cry if they wanted anything, and were not truly neglected. They got fed on time and changed according to schedule (mostly during commercials). But they were left to themselves other than daily maintenance, even on evening visits from their parents, as those two professionals were tired from work. So for those first couple of months there was nothing much the twins *could* do other than practice their wandless and wordless magic.

Simply wandless would have been easier, but they couldn't speak yet. The mouth parts were not that developed. Even merely wordless would have been less of a challenge, only they didn't have a wand to practice with either.

So if they were to do anything magical, it had to overcome both handicaps. And there simply wasn't that much else to do while waiting for their bodies to develop to where they could use them at anywhere near efficiency.

But develop they did. Everyone was impressed with them. Both Hermiones could crawl early, very early. Most babies their age were learning to roll over. Their hands were nimble and dexterous, putting on socks as easily as pulling them off (one when they got cold, the other when they got bored). They ate very neatly when they moved to solid foods, and paid attention when their parents talked to other adults, almost as if they could understand!

Their developmental rate would have been preposterous without magic strengthening their bodies. But it was an advantage they had, and so they learned how to use it.

They also spoke in a remarkably short time, at two months old, shortly after they'd started to crawl. Ann's first word was donuts (at the breakfast table) and Jane had demanded a book to read. Her father even had a picture of the diaper clad infant standing unsteadily, with a hand on her crib wall, her other hand thrust out imperiously to the shelf and demanding "Book!" Her mother had been so delighted she'd read them both a children's story, then tried to make it a regular practice on weekends - something she'd always intended to do, but starting almost a year early.

It was better than nothing, so the girls didn't bother to cry. But Ann was already summoning much more significant reading material off her parent's shelves whenever the adults weren't around. And those times they got caught 'playing' with a medical encyclopedia or something it was always the nanny who got scolded for leaving those around.

Although, after cleaning up after repeated incidents of having their medical library ransacked, Helen stood up, having a strange idea. She turned to the nanny, who was lounging on the couch with a bag of chips before the television. "Dear, do you want our help getting into medical or dental school?"

Helen simply couldn't think of another reason for her always plundering their library.

Surprisingly, the nanny thought about it for a second, right after High School all she'd wanted was not to be in school any longer. Only all her friends had moved on, and after months of no job prospects better than baby tender, she was starting to get better ideas. This wasn't the future she'd wanted. The teenage girl then sat up. "Sure. I think that would be great."

So the nanny started studying, granting better cover to Ann's summoned books.

Of course, it couldn't last.

OoOoO

"Aaaaghh! Not AGAIN!" Helen screamed, pulling her hair out over the book mess strewn all over the kitchen floor.

No sooner could they crawl than both Hermione twins became terrible monsters at finding the parents' home library and leaving novels strewn all about, to the point where it was obvious even to their never-home parents that it was the twins who'd been seeking out and playing with them (obviously taught to do so by the bad example set by that irresponsible nanny! - it never occurred to anyone that the tiny tots could read).

When those books went up on the top shelves it didn't stop Ann's summoning them at all, so long as people's backs were turned. So their parents went the second step of locking up the rather substantial home library in its own separate room. So the girls read cookbooks and dictionaries, everything that had been left out, just to have anything to read.

Coming home one day and finding the mess intolerable, Helen got a determined look on her face and was on the phone calling a remodeling company, who came over that evening. Later that week every bookcase in the Granger home was glass fronted, and they and all of the cabinets locked, leaving even the cookbooks securely out of reach, even of summoning spells.

Helen didn't know what she was protecting them from. She only knew the books kept getting out and her girls kept getting into them. The next step would have been to get her collection all hermetically sealed.

Work done, the mother then happily tucked the keys into her purse and her husband's wallet and happily went off to work, no longer worried about the mess. So Jane started a campaign of seeking out and stealing the TV remote control, hoping to catch up on news, while Ann began practicing wordless, wandless unlocking charms. No library door was going to stop her! Her source of entertainment and growth would NOT be denied!!

Although this time Ann vowed she'd learn banishing charms to put the books away again after she and her sister were done with them.

OoOoO

At four months the tremendously active girls got crayons and Jane thought of an idea.

Their mother had given the nanny a few days off to prepare for her entrance exam to the college of her choice and had resolved to spend a day with her children, the first weekday home since the end of her maternity leave, only to be amazed over how active her daughters were! Since the nanny lived in their home, Richard and Helen had been sheltered somewhat, even on evenings and weekends when they were home, from their care.

Now, being alone and resolved to spend time with them, Helen could barely keep up with them! They had no interest in any of their toys (well, actually they'd worked out a game long ago where Ann would levitate a toy around the room while Jane would try to shoot it with her many curses, jinxes, or her favorite - the blasting hex. Then, after the toy got hit Ann would repair all the damage and they'd start again. Thankfully none of this could be heard over the nanny's usual loud music, but neither could they do it in front of their mother!). So, in desperation, their mother had given them a box of Crayola, sixteen colors, and a couple of sheets of waste paper in an attempt to distract them from huddling underfoot as she went to call a babysitter so she could get a break.

Like most mothers, Helen was unaccustomed to just how much work caring for a couple of babies actually was. Unlike most, she earned enough to hire some significant help.

While she was on the phone, both her daughters shared a private grin.

The four month-olds had been talking in private conversations increasingly since their first words at two months, and both twins had agreed they'd hated being an only child growing up. So they'd stolen their mother's birth control pills out of her purse a month ago, rendering them nonfunctional with a minor charm Ann had performed before replacing them. It was a very low power healing spell, only meant to ease a snakebite, really. But the detox charm really seemed to have destroyed the value of those pills, and now Helen felt a need to go get a pregnancy check, and had decided so long as she was calling a sitter so she could go do that. The charm appeared to have done its job.

So, having a free moment when their mother was on the phone, Hermione Jane used her whole fist to control a black crayon and wrote out a short letter, nearly exhausting her arm and supporting magic to do it. Then, after a rest, she cast a charm the Ministry would soon learn to use instead of owls for their delivery of inter-departmental memos. To her delighted surprise, the paper folded up into an airplane and stood hovering, waiting for an address.

Desperately hoping her home wasn't too far from Godric's Hollow (as she'd never learned where that was, so it could be anywhere) Jane sent the memo fluttering off to find James Potter, praying inwardly that it had the range to reach him.

It was a note detailing how Harry's parents had died, telling that couple their future.

To Jane this was the absolute least she could do. She was still stewing over everything Dumbledore had done to Harry. What was the point of making him suffer his whole life? Did he want to break him because it was fun? Maybe that explained why he sheltered Snape so much, covering for the Death Eater's crimes, because at heart both men were a lot alike.

But they weren't the only team out there.

Both Granger girls were still, at the heart of it, the original Hermione. At seven months, by the time they could walk reliably they had had a bunch of time to talk over the issue, and Ann had eventually agreed that Dumbledore had been all wrong about a bunch of things.

Still, the younger Hermione didn't understand how her sister could distrust all authority so much. She'd not been through the same things her sister had realized during those precious few moments of crisis because she'd been distracted from realizing them by her older self's arrival. Now they were siblings and she could have those things explained to her, but they lacked the same impact. Intellectually, Ann could grasp that Dumbledore had handled the Harry situation all wrong, and the Ministry of Magic was corrupt, but it did not have the same visceral power to convince her of the utter rottenness of magical government.

Jane had seen, really and truly seen in those moments of inspiration how there was nothing good about the authority figures of the magical world. The politicians, like their press, were the worst sort of prejudiced garbage! Justice was a sham, racism and inequality abounded, while lies, bribes and influence ruled. They were the problem. Men like Tom Riddle were just the symptoms. And, once she'd lost all trust of magical government in those moments, she'd come to realize that she had no reason to trust any other authority figures. All her life she'd been hearing of scandals in muggle governments and businesses around the world. Even her once-adored teachers at muggle schools hadn't done anything about the bullying. It was never as bad as at Hogwarts, but the muggle world wasn't healthy either.

Being less diseased did not mean you weren't ill.

But while she could argue that with her younger sister, Jane couldn't convince her to the same degree as those few moments had done for her. Ann had come to accept that the current magical authority figures were corrupt, but she still clung to her belief that authority was good in general. Ann just felt the magical ones were exceptions, while her elder sister feared that corrupt authority figures were the rule.

But that was really the only point of disagreement between the girls. They were, after all, very much alike. This was only natural, having originally been the same person.

Incidentally, as far as blowing the development curve, both girls were fully potty trained from the moment they could reliably walk - at seven months, blowing away all previous records. That was still a month earlier than even most early children were learning to crawl.

One's first steps and first words were usually closely associated with your first birthday, but having done it all before it was only the capabilities of their underdeveloped bodies holding these girl back, and those they'd learned they could strengthen with magic.

Jane had also been sending out daily memos to both the Potters, Remus and Sirius Black, desperately hoping for one of those to get through - and having gotten good enough at stunning spells to hit birds, then yank off a couple of feathers, she could then use small, neat and precise cutting hexes to turn into quills, which required almost no applied pressure to write and thus almost no hand strength to use, and so were much better than crayons for young hands to write with. She even found that soy sauce made a tolerable ink.

At ten months old, almost two months precisely before their first birthday and after a six month campaign of flying memos, a regal looking eagle owl came flying into the Granger backyard where Jane had been trying to work on her wandless bubble-head charm in the kiddie pool their parents had bought for them. After all, she saw the spell as useful in the second task, in case she needed to aid Harry (and there was NO way she was going to be a hostage for Krum this time around!).

Pulling herself out of the tiny pool and grabbing a towel (Ann would have used a drying charm, but Jane hadn't been able to spare the time to learn one, focused as she was on more critical, life-threatening things) she approached the owl, which held out its leg. Taking the letter it offered and seeing it had a heavy wax stamp with a stylized 'P' on it, she couldn't help beaming up at the owl and asking, "You'll wait for a reply?"

The owl settling in on the deck railing it had perched on was answer enough, and moments later Jane went shrieking into the house, charging on to the living room, where Ann had been practicing piano, having shrunk the family grand down to a size she could play - her whole body wasn't long enough to reach the right spread of keys at its full size.

Ann's first reaction on being interrupted was annoyance, until her older sister lunged at her, shoving a heavy piece of parchment into her hands along with an envelope bearing a wax seal. Then her interest overcame annoyance and she read, "Hello, just who are you and why do you keep sending us letters? More important, how did you know that prophecy? Albus told us he'd only heard it himself yesterday, yet you've been bombarding us with it for months! Signed - James Potter."

"The owl is waiting for our reply," Jane bounced eagerly.

Ann adopted a doubtful expression, indicating the letter, she said, "This isn't exactly brimming over with confidence, is it?"

"That's not the point!" Jane bounced in place. "The point is they've been *hearing* us! We got those letters to them! Our lines of communication are open, now we only have to convince them!"

"Well, we haven't exactly done a bang-up job of that." Ann frowned at the letter.

Jane swallowed her enthusiasm over that topic to make another entreaty to her sister, "Ok, let's say we don't, they never listen and things happen exactly the same as last time. So what? Right this moment we've got a genuine post-owl sitting on the railing in our backyard, waiting to carry a return letter for us! We know those are willing to make multiple stops from all those times Hedwig carried our post to shops and things on the way back to Harry. What do you think would happen if we were to say, send a stapler to Arthur Weasley along with a brief written description of its use, and an offer to sell both to him in return for enough gold to buy a potion or two and an owl-order catalog from Flourish and Blotts?"

~Instant sale,~ the words flashed across both their minds, Ann in reference to Arthur buying a genuine (and working) muggle artifact along with instructions, while Jane was thinking it in terms of her sister, watching her get the idea of ordering from the magical bookstore.

"You're thinking of the stapler dad threw out yesterday?" Ann wanted to confirm, and Jane nodded. The old one worked fine, but had gotten scratched up and dinged over years of use, so their dad had finally gotten around to buying a replacement. But Arthur wouldn't care about a few blemishes in appearance.

"I'll go get it. No one has dumped any wastebaskets since yesterday." Ann popped off her chair and ran to get the valuable muggle artifact while Jane sat down with a pen and a few sheets of notebook paper to write the description of how and why to use a stapler.

"We can also inquire if he'd be willing to pay the same for a rubber duck, along with more instructions for use," Jane stated as her sister came back with the retrieved stapler. They had more bath toys than they knew what to do with. "Ask him to owl us if he's interested."

Ann smiled, nodding her head. "Brilliant! That way we'd get another shot at having a post owl carry correspondence for us." The younger girl blinked and cocked her head. "You know, I bet Errol isn't even that old now. He's probably in his prime as a letter carrier."

"Harry's not even born yet and he was fifteen months old before Voldemort's attack," Jane repeated from memory, not to be derailed, having devoted a great deal of thought to this. "That's almost a year and a half left for us to prepare for preventing him from ever seeing the Dursleys, and we just got a contact with the magical world." She stopped, then blinked herself as she caught up on her sister's statement. "You know, you're right. I'd never thought of it, but the Weasley owl ought to be in his prime right now, shouldn't he?"

Ann smirked at her dear older sister. "Yes, but all that means is that they might have a different owl than Errol. They did tend to buy things second hand in that family."

Jane shrugged, going back to her work. "Possible, but he might also be an owl given to Arthur or Molly by their own parents back from when they were children starting Hogwarts. We don't know how well off Ginny's grandparents families were, only that they didn't have as many children to spread their earnings between."

Ann allowed herself a sly smile. "Not to mention Arthur never had a prestigious job, tucked into a small department at the back of the Ministry. I doubt he got over-compensated."

Jane frowned, before finishing her description of the stapler and starting in on the first page of her letter to the Potters. "Actually that hurts us in that there's only so much we can sell to the Weasleys. They never had all that much in the way of spending cash, and Ron was born last March, so that would bring them up to six children. Things must already be tight over there."

Ann had already brought into the concept of gaining early contact with the wizarding world, however, and optimistically saw that it would happen. "Doesn't matter, you know how obsessed he is, and we're not asking for much - less than one of Lockhart's books, and you know Molly had a shelf full of those, to say nothing of Arthur's shed full of muggle rubbish."

Jane nodded, rolling her eyes as she changed papers, having filled up one. "Yeah, and then there was that trip to Egypt. They'd have been much better off investing that money into repairs around the house and better school supplies. But they splurged on a trip."

Ann, no longer able to contain herself, grabbed a piece of paper and began to write the note to the Weasleys herself. "Yes. I'm beginning to think Arthur may not have been all that badly paid, he was a department head after all, even if only of a small one. Poor money management skills might have been the cause of their financial difficulties."

"It's entirely possible. Most wizards are completely senseless," Jane agreed. "Given an average salary, if you waste much of it suddenly you find yourself poor."

Ann gave off a playful, yet agreeing snort. "Which means that we have to be doubly careful to get maximum benefit out of whatever it is we can get from him. Our allowances don't start until we're nearly ten. And I don't think we can sell much to the Weasleys."

Jane raised her head, having a sudden thought. "Maybe not. But how about this: we buy a post owl of our own with the money, then sell articles to Teen Witch Weekly. They've got to be hurting for material that doesn't reek of the current war, and I'd guess every young witch wants a good way to distract herself from all the horror that's going on over there."

Ann stopped writing, raising her head, struck by the idea. They mostly thought on the same wavelengths as each other, finishing each others thoughts sometimes (although they felt it was rude to interrupt each other to complete one another's sentences). Still, there was just enough difference between them to make excellent sounding boards for each others ideas, and Ann scowled. "Yes, unfortunately, neither of us know the least thing about the wizarding world's makeup tips. Well, nothing we didn't overhear from Lavender, anyway."

"We could learn," the other replied with a smile. "And besides, Lavender was an expert on her field, and her advice is at least ten years ahead of the rest of the magical world."

The two girls stared at each other before they both broke down into giggles.

OoOoO

James Potter sat in a plush recliner with a gobsmacked expression on his face and a piece of muggle notebook paper dangling limply from his fingers.

"What is it, dear?" Lily, in a very advanced state of pregnancy, came into the room, adopting a concerned expression when she saw the state her husband was in. Assuming it was bad news and he was trying to wrap his head around it, she carefully lifted the letter out from his limp fingers and began to read aloud, "Dear Mr Potter, you don't know me, and perhaps that's for the best because the first thing you'd do with that information is go running to Dumbledore, who'd certainly get excited about my knowing that prophecy I've been telling you about for six months. Then he'd tell the Order of the Phoenix that you all belong to, and the spies in that Order would tell the enemy, and I'd rather not draw his attention just now.

"I'm sure you understand. It is your son who is prophesied to defeat him, after all, and he won't be born until the end of the month - just hours after the Longbottoms have their boy, in point of fact. So, strictly speaking, the prophecy could be about either of them. But I have reason to believe it's your son that's important.

"Enough of my rambling. You'd never believe me anyway. No, what I suggest is a potion known as Veritaserum. You'd never trust a bottle I sent, so obtain your own supply and use a few drops to test the rest of the Order. Do something like spike the refreshments at one of your meetings, then stand up and declare that you do not serve the enemy, then pressure the others to say the same. Note who cannot, who does not, who slips out of the room (no matter what excuse they make) and who is able to say it. Also note who did not partake of any of your spiked drinks. You may be surprised.

"Surely the Master Marauder can improve on this rough idea. But that ought to get you started in the right direction. I'd suggest you try it on a small scale first, say your friends, as that way you can dispose of any doubts you might have about Remus, the werewolf, and your friend Sirius Black, who is from a noted dark family, and Peter the rat - who I have reason to believe recently took the Mark and became a Death Eater. If I were in your place I'd find some way to regularly test everyone, just for peace of mind.

"Oh, and speaking of minds, Dumbledore is not alone at being able to read them. You'd do well to find some means of defense against that, as Moldyshorts and Snivellus can too, and use it at every opportunity. I am told that is part of the secret of those three men's success as duelers - the ability to pluck their enemy's plans from their minds during a fight. And on the topic of Snape, you just relayed to me that Dumbledore said he'd heard the prophecy yesterday. That means he was at his brother's tavern interviewing an applicant by the name of Sybil Trelawney for the post of Divination Professor. During the course of that interview she gave the prophecy I'd previously described to you, only a Death Eater was listening at the door. That Death Eater was Snivellus Snape, and he went directly and told what he'd overheard to his master - in return for a promise of Lily as his sex slave.

"Only two children could fit that prophecy: your son, and the Longbottom boy. Vulturewart will try to erase this threat himself. That means he'll be coming after both of you personally. If I were in your place I would make doubly sure I wasn't relying on any traitors. It is not only your lives on the line, after all, but the fate of the entire wizarding world.

"I'd suggest you use multiple safeguards, and let no one person outside yourselves know even half of your security measures. If you decide to use Fidelius, put three or even four houses under separate charms with different keepers and move between them randomly, so one knows where you will be on any one day. Not even your closest friends can be forced to reveal information they don't have.

"Always have an escape route, and don't lend your invisibility cloak to anyone, because if all else fails you can always sneak invisibly out the back door while your enemy blasts in the front, or vice versa. Never get trapped upstairs without a way to fly out. Get spare wands and carry them everywhere. Get wand holsters charmed so you can keep them with you even while asleep or in the bath, so if necessary you can transfigure a wall into a way out.

"Think like rabbits: never be far from cover, always have multiple escape routes, be ready to flee at any time on a moment's notice. Remember you have just become your enemy's number one priority. Resources will be directed towards your destruction that you never merited before. The Dork Lord will spare nothing to destroy you and ensure his survival.

"Your first task is to survive. But that will be hard as they will focus their efforts on you like never before. Lay some traps, magic and muggle ones - because unlike wizarding traps, muggle ones cannot be detected by faint traces of magic. Even if the Dork Lord does come after you he'll have a difficult time chasing you down if he's lost one leg to a bear trap.

"Keep your bags packed and your baby in arm's reach. Know two or three different places you could run to at all times, and four or five different ways to get there safely in case you can't get to the floo and the enemy throws up anti-apparition wards or whatever. Simply assume they will do so during any attack. Make sure you have multiple systems of alarms in case one fails or gets detected and bypassed, and set them over a wide enough area so you have more advance warning of an enemy's approach than you need in time to get out of wherever it is you're at, even if you have to roll out of bed or get out of the bathtub when the attack arrives. And don't trust anyone you haven't verified with Veritaserum to hold any of your secrets - and, sadly, don't trust Dumbledore in either case. He tends to trust people who may not be trustworthy, and shares secrets with them. But your own tests with Veritaserum will tell you whether or not to believe me on that.

"Above all, stay alive. Your son needs you.

"A Concerned Friend.

"P.S. Oh, and in case all else fails, you need to update your wills, as if certain meddlesome old men have their way Harry will grow up tortured and brutalized, if he grows up at all."

Lily dropped the letter, almost as stunned as her husband. Turning to him, she looked at him with puzzled eyes. "But, you never told anyone you were a Marauder. That was the purpose of taking those silly names, so you could claim credit under your alias while getting none of the official blame!"

James nodded, still staring off into space. "What good is it to pull off a master prank, not get caught doing it, then claim credit and lose two hundred points while getting a detention? No, I even pranked myself and signed it Prongs so my alias and I would stay unconnected." He leaned back and flipped a leg over the armrest of his recliner and gestured at the letter with his empty glass. "So whoever it is knows secrets they shouldn't. And the letter reads like Moody wrote it, except that nowhere does he use the phrase 'Constant Vigilance'."

Lily shook her head, sitting down to ease the strain on her back. She truly should've sat earlier, but the shock of reading that letter had blotted it out of her awareness. "It may even be more paranoid than he is. Besides, he never would've recommended muggle traps."

At this James acquired a slight smirk. "You know, I have to admit the idea of 'Moldyshorts' running around on one leg appeals to me." Here he snorted. "I never gave any thought to the idea that 'Vulturewart' found my traps before because I always transfigured them out of handy detritus. But if he can detect faint magic traces, that would do it."

"Could Peter really be a Death Eater?" Doubt and distress marked Lily's question.

"No," James' confidence came through in his voice. "He doesn't have it in him."

Lily was nodding, having summoned the letter and rereading sections of it. "Honey, I don't see how any Death Eater could have written this. For one, it seems genuine and doesn't ask for our trust, only our caution."

Her husband rose up out of his seat, only now he was smiling as he poured himself another glass of whatever it was he'd been drinking. "And for another, none of them dare to call him by his name. They wouldn't dream of going further by mocking it." He posed with his refilled glass by the sideboard. "That's an idea I should have had, honestly."

The very pregnant woman nodded again. "Yes. I can't see him for a moment tolerating being called by those horrid nicknames. None of his followers would dare to try, even on a scheme, even if it was a success. Not even most Order members have the courage to call him anything but 'You-Know-Who'. Not even Moody would do this. He'd say it was reckless to taunt your enemy like that, that it draws unnecessary attention."

James pursed his lips and smacked them, his sly smile growing. "Well, seeing as how we are shortly to be Number One on Moldyfart's hit list, I don't see what harm mocking him can do, so I might just adopt the habit. After all, it can't hurt us and angry men make mistakes, so it might help those he isn't targeting get in a shot if he loses his temper at us."

James grinned at his wife who thought about it, then agreed.

James reached over and grabbed the letter. "I'm going to make a copy of this to give to Frank and Alice. It has some good suggestions."

"And I'll contact Dumbledore." Lily groaned and began the slow process of rising out of her seat.

"Honey," James caught her with a serious tone. "Don't tell him about the Veritaserum. I am going to take at least one suggestion of this letter and test everyone as soon as I can whip up a batch. And," he paused, then swallowed, "don't look him in the eyes, either. Ok? I want to know for certain if he can read minds before we risk him reading the letter from ours. The letter is right about one thing, it's long past time we learned who was truly on our side or not, and with stakes this high that's something we've got to learn for ourselves. Albus has let some questionable sorts into the Order - people like Dung."

Lily didn't like it, but agreed. Sighing, she added, "One other thing whoever wrote this letter had very right: life is going to be different being our enemy's number one priority."

Now it was her husband who didn't like it, but found himself agreeing, "Yeah, before now we enjoyed the cheerful anonymity of merely being two people among many in the fight against him. Now we may be the parents of the one person who could stop him. I guess I hadn't realized it until that letter pointed it out, but the game is different now."

James paused a moment to swirl the liquid in his glass, before saying, "The thing I can't work out is how this person knew we'd settled on Harry for a boy's name."

OoOoO

The Hermione twins were completely unsurprised when Dumbledore showed up at their home mere hours after they'd sent the return letter to the Potters. It was obvious someone had let something slip, and he was there tracing the mysterious message to its source.

Impressive that he'd gotten that far, actually. They didn't know how he'd done it. But all the old man found at their house were some admitted traces of magic, one nanny watching TV and two tiny children with their heads down intently playing with their muggle toys.

No active spells or magic devices anywhere.

It must have been obvious to the old man that a fair amount of magic had been used around that house fairly recently, household charms as well as combat spells, but the feel of the caster was not familiar to him. He'd never met the person before, and he usually had the privilege of witnessing students cast spells for years before trying to connect the two and identify a person by the faint traces left by their magic.

Such was not the case here, so he might easily suspect it was a foreigner.

He could easily assume that someone, like old Horace Slughorn, had been using magic to hide in the midst of a muggle household to escape notice of the people in the current war, and that person had moved on after sending the letter. If it was a foreigner, then that person was probably trying to observe the war without getting directly involved.

That could mean other governments might be getting interested in Britain's troubles.

Actually, what the old man was concluding was that the faint trace he had followed had been expertly forged to lead him to this dead end. Lily had relayed that whoever it was had shown greater-than-Mad-Eye levels of paranoid caution. So it was only to be expected the faint traces led to a place completely unconnected to the paranoid yet anonymous writer.

No one displaying such caution would dwell in a house without defensive wards.

The twins couldn't read his mind. But so long as they kept their heads down and eyes facing the floor he couldn't read theirs either. Still, he didn't leave until he'd Obliviated the nanny of his presence and tracked down the two parents at their dentistry and made sure that neither of them were a muggleborn who'd returned to their roots to escape the fighting, just on the odd chance he could find some connection to the mysterious letter writer.

In any case, he hadn't bothered the two muggle infants crawling about pushing tiny toy trucks around on the carpet.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

Nothing much to say. Should start to get to a certain infamous ladies school sometime in the next chapter, I hope. 


	3. Chapter 3

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Three

by Skysaber

OoOoO

The Granger twins' foray into the realm of magical publishing had paid off better than either of them could have hoped for. In the first place they'd simply recycled muggle dating tips and fashion advice gleaned from magazines laying around the dental practice, reworded for a wizarding audience. After all, colors were colors whether applied to robes or blouses, and matching tips were the same either way.

Jane was right. The wizarding world's magazines had been screaming for stuff not reeking of the current war, something for a young witch to read to take her mind off of the dire danger she and her family were in, for the same reason that people drink - to forget. And that was exactly what the reworded muggle articles provided to the teen witch audience.

This sold like neither of the twins could have believed going into it, granting them a small yet adult income, enabling them by the grand old age of eleven months old to have picked up a handful of resources to better improve their knowledge of the field they were now presenting themselves as experts in, buying magical guides to cosmetic charms and so on so they'd know some of the common spells and potions. Ann even went so far as to learn some of them wordlessly and wandlessly.

Jane was too busy learning wandless and wordless Confundus and compulsion charms.

They could speak now, so wordless was not a requirement on any of their spells. But it was something they'd gotten the hang of, and the more they did of it the easier it got to learn more spells that way. Just like learning a new language, the first little bit is really difficult and doesn't seem to have any real utility. 'Okay, I can introduce myself. So what?' But the more you learned, the more it linked together and the easier things got.

So, having started things that way, it was easy enough to continue that both sisters felt it worth the effort. Besides, wordless spells had the advantage that they could cast them around their parents when they weren't looking and still not get caught - a vital advantage.

Wandless they still didn't have any choice on. It was wandless or nothing, so they learned to use any new spells just like all the magic they'd practiced this life - without tools.

It was never as easy as learning spells using wands and incantations would have been, but it lay within their ability, and after nearly a year of dedicated practice getting the talent started did not take too much extra effort or time for each additional spell. So they decided to continue going that way as the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. Besides, one very important fact lay in the observation that the Ministry had not come to stop them, so in all probability they could not track this kind of magic, so it was something they could continue during summers while at Hogwarts - a very appealing advantage indeed.

However, it was not their spell work that had their undivided attention just then. Having an owl and a source of magical income meant they had access to magical products. Both of the twins were as eager as anything to fill their entire home with magical textbooks on every subject, but they had to acknowledge they could not hide much of that sort of thing before it got discovered and they'd be explaining things to their parents.

That promised to be an awkward conversation, so by mutual consent the girls avoided it.

Around this time their new baby brother arrived, the poor sap laden with the unfortunate name of Romeo, which their mother felt romantic and their father did not object to strongly enough, dooming the child to years of teasing at public schools. He could have gone by his middle name, save that was equally unfortunate: Romeo Millhouse.

The poor boy was going to hate public school.

Still, this arrival, delightful as it was, was not able to capture much of the girls' attention. No, that focus lay in an entirely different direction.

They had discovered Aging Potion.

This had been used unsuccessfully by the Weasley Twins during that whole tournament fiasco trying to circumvent the age line protecting the Goblet of Fire. A few drops made them a few months older while the potion lasted. And, well, both Hermiones got caught up by the observation that a few bottles of that and they could be sixteen again.

Then they both had, practically in the same instant, the same absolutely wonderful idea.

They could be eleven again just as easily as sixteen.

"We could continue our educations!" both cried out at once in the same excited voice, then statements began to ripple on top of each other with no clear origin between which girl had stated them as both cascaded along the same thoughts at once. "We both did very well in muggle primary school the first time through. But then we got the invitation to Hogwarts and never completed our secondary ed. But we could this time! I'm certain we could pass the entry tests again. Our scores were always top of our class, whether magic or muggle."

Although neither said it, Hermione had her academic future plotted out well in advance of even hearing about the wizarding world, and had been quite excited about those plans before learning about magic. So excited it had been a difficult thing to abandon them to go attend Hogwarts, and though magic was superior in that it could allow a person to do more types of things than a single muggle education, that disappointment had still lingered.

Both girls assumed that getting into Hogwarts early would be impossible. For one thing the magical staff could probably detect the use of Aging Potion to get in early, but for another attendance was by invitation only.

So that left her free to pursue her once lost but not forgotten muggle education goals in the meantime. The hurt of abandoning those fond plans still lingered, but now she could pick up where she'd left off, and there was so much out there still to learn!

"Now we can finally finish attending Cheltenham Ladies College!" Ann clapped her hands in glee, having attended one year there while waiting to enroll at Hogwarts.

"It's a very prestigious school, but I'm not going back," Jane objected.

Ann was flabbergasted, staring at her sister in utter horror, to the point where Jane felt embarrassed enough to explain, "It's a very good school for what it does, but what does it do? Prepare girls for life in the normal world. I'm sorry, but magic wasn't enough by itself to save us from the war the first time, and we all know we are eventually going to be drawn in to it again, being muggleborns. Math and art are not going to be any better at helping us survive. If we are to get through this, what we have to know is how to really fight."

Ann regarded her sister a little dubiously, not having had any idea the breach between their ideals was this bad. Cheltenham had always been their dream! Attempting to reconcile the points of view, she tried, "But they have sport. I'm certain we can take gymnastics or fencing or even martial arts if that would help."

"Dancers on a stage!" Jane shook her head in rejection. "Those won't do it! They aren't good enough. We know what the war is eventually going to be like: ambushes in the middle of the night, murder, rape and torture along with no holds barred battles to the death! A sport isn't going to help enough! It isn't, *can't* teach us what we need to know! Not even fighting trolls and rescuing baby dragons prepared us for how bad this was going to be! No, I've already decided. The only kind of environment that's able to give me the kind of background education I'll need to survive is St Trinian's School for Young Ladies."

There followed an instant of absolutely horrified silence, then suddenly Ann was on her feet and shrieking, "ST TRINIANS!!? HOW COULD YOU..."

"Quiet back there!" the nanny shouted. "It's not a commercial!"

Jane cast a quick spell to reinforce the ongoing Confundus on the nanny, the one causing her to mistake the girls talking for crying, then reinforced her Compulsion to ignore it. They didn't actually need the nanny to do anything for them they couldn't do themselves, after all, and it was better to be ignored than discovered.

Sitting back down, Jane repeated, "Yes, St Trinian's."

Ann reacted with the shock one expected of someone seeing their Pastor stand up to announce he was going to hell, and would anyone like to bring the barbecue sauce? She was astounded, and couldn't help staring at her clearly deranged older sister. Wetting her lips, she replied, "Um, you are aware that's not exactly a school. It's more of a training institute for young offenders masquerading as one. Most places when you graduate they send you to college. With St Trinian's it's more like you get shipped to the prison of your choice, and that's IF you last that long! They're the only school in the country that has a spot on both the scales of 'most dangerous correctional facilities' and 'top party schools'! How could you possibly pick the only institution in the entire Commonwealth more dangerous than Hogwarts? It's a mess of violence, robbery and scams not seen outside an American gangster movie and sees more of its students dead of drug overdose than graduated!!"

Jane retorted calmly. "One where I hope to acquire the useful life skills of picking locks and pockets, forgery, flouting the law, and smuggling - tools that are all sure to serve me well in the upcoming war. C'mon, every spy has to know that sort of thing! And with the Ministry as fouled up as it is we're going to need to operate outside of the normal rules. Where else do you think we could learn such things? It's not like they teach that kind of subject in normal books or schools. They don't print Practical Guides to Overthrowing Your Government!"

"You're serious," Ann realized, her eyes hardly able to get any wider. Something within her had held onto the hope that her dear older sister had been telling a bad joke.

Ann could only view this with horror. To her this was losing her sister, someone whom she had only just realized really mattered to her. Having been flung through time together she was the only person who understood her, her only friend.

Tears began to flood down Ann's cheeks at once, only it wasn't the way babies cry, it was the heartbreak of a young lady who was losing her only companion in the world. The very name of St Trinian's was enough to make all right thinking people react with shock and horror and her sister was about to go leaping into it!

"Isn't there anything I can do to change your mind?" she pled.

To Jane's surprise, Ann's reaction was breaking her own heart, too. And she found herself melting in the face of this plea. After all, each girl only had one friend - the other, and the depth of experiences behind them would make it hard for anyone else to relate even if she hadn't had a history of finding it hard to make friends in the first place. So there stood a very real chance they might be each other's only true friend all their lives long.

She certainly wasn't going to hook up with Ron again.

Jane sucked in her own lips. "Can you think of another way to acquire the skills we need? I've given this a lot of thought, and we need basically the ability to thumb our nose at the magical government and get away with it - there's just too much that's rotten there to work with it! Even the Underage Magic Restriction alone has almost gotten Harry killed!"

Ann paused, heartbroken and stymied, for a moment before blurting, "We need to do something to prevent you from becoming a common criminal."

Jane laughed wiping tears from her eyes. "I assure you, I have every intention of becoming an *exceptional* criminal!"

Both laughed, frightened, but somewhat eased.

"No," Ann corrected, "what I mean is, you are going to plunge yourself into a lifestyle that corrupts and destroys brains as well as bodies..."

Jane interrupted, making a face, "I was hoping to avoid destroying either."

"And what will you do if someone slips drugs into your tea? They won't ask nicely. Pushers always need more addicts." Ann scolded. "That place is only allowed to exist as a dumping ground for all of the incurable discipline problems in the English speaking world! The school yearbooks are used as mugshots by the local police! A St Trinian's education counts as evidence against your character in any court of law. I don't think we can count on nothing bad happening to you there!" she finished energetically.

"I... I guess I hadn't thought of that," Jane allowed. "I was all focused on what I could get out of the experience, not on what it could do to me."

"Well," Ann considered, "even supposing that none of them succeed at ensnaring you, which is far from assured as they're all expert crooks and you're just a beginner, we'd still have to do something to make sure you don't wind up adopting their lifestyle and outlook. That school does not produce productive achievers, only small time crooks who come to very bad ends. I think the record for new graduates staying alive and out of prison is seven years. Most are behind bars inside of three months. In fact that's where many of the girls spend their summer holidays even during the course of their education there."

Jane blinked. Perhaps she hadn't thought this through as well as she might've? The difference in perspective as Ann presented the same data was coming as a bit of a shock. Jane already knew those things, but hearing Ann present them they sounded so much worse than when she'd been working it out in her own private thoughts.

But Ann was rolling on without interruption. "In the first place we need to find a way to stop any hint of that place from turning up on your permanent records, which is a bit of a trick as they take fingerprints of all future hooligans who enroll there, as well as keep dental records to help identify the bodies. So polyjuice or other kinds of disguise are a must, a pity we aren't a metamorph. That would make this simple and not cost as much as continual rounds of the potion to change your looks, which I'm not sure we could afford."

Jane now started to look at this as an intellectual problem. "Actually, we'd have to find some way to do that regardless, just to reproduce all of our previous school records, as we'll need those wherever we go. If we can do that, fixing up fakes shouldn't be too much a problem."

"Our original records shouldn't be too hard," Ann considered. "All we need is a pensieve to look over our memories of them. You recall how we used to be about them." Indeed, both girls recalled how the Hermione of old loved reviewing her excellent grade reports, some she'd even framed and hung on her walls. Children learn to focus on whatever earns their parents' approval, and good grades had been a source of much parental attention for her. So there wouldn't be any problem coming up with a complete history of her schooling as those memories ought to be firm enough to easily recall.

Ann was already rambling on, "then I'm certain we could magically produce copies able to fool the muggle education system. The trouble would be getting them distributed to all of the various departments and things that needed them to recreate our muggle educational history. I can't see a way to do that. Ideally we'd even go so far as implanting the memories of us in all of our former teachers if possible. But that's even harder."

Jane had an odd thought. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ministry of Magic didn't have a department for fiddling with muggle records. They'd almost have to, considering all the evidence and reports and things that would have to disappear semi-regularly to keep the magical world secret."

"You're right. We'll have to look into that," Ann agreed. "It's almost certain to exist, and that would make things so much easier if we could get it to work for us. Actually, it MUST exist, because otherwise there'd be no way for them to dispose of squibs by safely tucking them away in the muggle world like they do. So they must be able to create muggle identities for them, or the people without magic would get caught for lack of records."

Jane began nodding. "And that way we wouldn't be stuck simply with our own records, we could create a disposable identity for me to attend St. Trinian's under, one that I wouldn't be stuck with for the rest of my life. So that way I won't be followed around by the stain."

Ann rolled her eyes. "Well, not a stain on your permanent records, anyway. I still worry about the stain on your heart and soul if you go to such a place. But perhaps there's something to be done for that as well. In the first place, I recommend you don't board at that awful place, just treat it as a day school. That should minimize the impact, at least."

Jane now giggled. "I could say the same for you. Cheltenham Ladies have their own bullies, and I don't seem to recall we had any friends there, so..."

"That's an awful long commute," Ann observed dubiously.

"Not by magic," Jane riposted. "In fact, now I think about it, we were licensed to apparate back before we returned. We could be getting around as much as we wanted!"

OoOoO

"I can't believe that worked," Jane described, pulling off the Yoda ears she'd gotten from the back of a muggle costume shop and slipping out of her tea cozy. At eleven months she was close to the appropriate size for a House elf, too.

Ann was blinking in astonishment at the clump of long blonde hair her sister held in her hand. "Yeah, me too. Popping outside Malfoy Manor, summoning their House Elf and saying 'Mistress demands Hermy clean her hairbrush or Hermy must iron hands' to get it to bring Narcissa's hairbrush to you so you could pull out all the loose hairs."

"Dobby was most helpful," Jane supplied, slipping out of the rest of her 'Hermy the House Elf' disguise. "So, is the Polyjuice ready?"

"Yes. I bought it fresh from a reliable dealer. I just wish we could've chosen a safer target."

"We've already been through this. Death Eaters don't target each other, so they are the only people safe to impersonate, just in case there are random raids. And we know Dobby wasn't right in the head, so was the elf most likely to go along with such a crazy scheme and not see the obvious holes - like if I'd been Narcissa's elf I could've crossed the ward line."

OoOoO

Bureaucracy runs on paperwork.

The first part of the girls' mission to obtain their muggle background vital to resuming their beloved educations was simple enough. The plan was to have Ann, acting as Narcissa Malfoy, carry baby Jane into the Ministry of Magic, deposit her in the nursery, then walk out again.

They ran into immediate problems right before she drank the polyjuice. Namely they didn't have any clothes that would suit Narcissa Malfoy. They didn't even have for themselves other than diapers and baby outfits.

"Okay, change of plans," Jane declared, on spotting a well-attired witch heading for the Ministry entrance. Before Ann could say anything, Jane had shot out a stunner, dropping the woman. A quick Confundus and Compulsion charm later and the anonymous witch had downed the potion and was carrying in two baby girls, placing them at the Ministry nursery.

"Name?" the bored Ministry clerk who didn't actually have to deal with babies other than registering them in and out asked.

"Narcissa Malfoy," the well-charmed witch replied.

The worker looked up, then down at the two babies in her arms. "Children's names?"

Ann had a moment of squirmy panic, but Jane had already thought ahead and poured on the wordless, wandless compulsion charm. "Anastasia and Jacqueline," the woman said, hefting first Ann then Jane as she did so, matching both 'A' names to the same girl and both 'J' ones together likewise.

Soon they were deposited in the creche, alone with some elves and the other infants.

"Anastasia?" Ann asked dubiously. "Jacqueline?"

"Well, you have to admit, Ann and Jane are way too plain for someone who named a boy Draco," Jane shrugged, ignoring the wide-eyed elves for now, as they knew that most of them were incapable of exceeding their instructions, and these elves had been told to provide feeding and changing services for the babies, nothing more. So they wouldn't be reporting this, and the other babies couldn't. In fact, the twins were in the most private place in the Ministry building outside of a private office, which no one like them could get in to.

They were left on their own with the toys.

"So, Wacky Jackie, when will our 'mommy' pick us up? Half an hour?" Ann guessed.

"She should, if my charms work as well as they ought to. I never did get much of a chance to practice them, though. So if she's not back in forty we'll find our own way out."

"Best to hurry then." Ann summoned parchment and Jane retrieved ink and quill that had been smuggled in in her diaper.

The standard for communication inside the Ministry building was the paper air plane charm. So a memo, coming from inside the Ministry building, arriving at any Ministry department, was taken as the genuine article.

And a simple request for the appropriate forms to start a process had no reason anyone should be suspicious of it.

Twenty minutes later, the right forms arrived. The Hermiones spent only a moment looking over the tall stack before they decided this had to be done as homework. They wouldn't have enough time remaining on their visit. So Ann shrank the pages and braided both her and her sisters hair, using them as ties.

Ten minutes after that their mommy-for-a-day had them out of there.

"What will she remember?" Ann asked once they'd been deposited safely outside, and were apparating to a few muggle parks to hang out and shake off any potential followers.

"I don't have Obliviate spells, only Confundus and Compulsion." Jane corrected. "So I couldn't make her forget. I did suggest that she regard it as an ordinary event and dismiss it as unimportant, though. So unless someone asks about it she's not likely to do any thinking about our trip today."

They were gone about an hour, with the nanny charmed to miss the whole thing.

OoOoO

The next day both Hermiones were there at the same place roughly the same time with properly filled out paperwork tied in bows in their hair, ready to try the same thing again.

The amazing thing was that same well-dressed witch was there again. Although they really should have suspected something when the lady, compelled to drink polyjuice charged to make her look like Narcissa Malfoy, drank from her own supply.

Frankly they didn't notice because they weren't looking for anything like that, and everything else seemed to go smoothly right up until they were dropped at the creche.

Jane sent off the forms via the memo spell. Five minutes later they had a confirmation back along with a date a week later for the appointment to have two muggle IDs assembled. She had only just returned the forms to her hair when their fake Narcissa came back in, accompanied by Lucius Malfoy.

Jane was so startled at the unexpected interruption that she stunned the man. But he was quickly brought back by the lady, who said, "As you can see, they are both magically strong, healthy baby girls."

"I already have a son," Lucius sneered. "What would I need two girls for?"

The fake Narcissa gave him the Look. "Do you honestly mean to tell me you have no use for the potential alliances and affiliations you could get from two arranged marriages?"

"Arranged marriages of any worth cost rather hefty dowries," the man returned smoothly. "If these were boys, I'd be receiving money instead of paying it out."

"If these were boys your recently born son's succession would be in doubt," the black market child dealer returned with her own snide twist. "In fact, the heir of your body would be unlikely to inherit. While these don't cause problems. You've already announced the birth on your heir. Acquiring older boys could raise suspicions you were dealing in this kind of activity. But girls? There is no social requirement to announce the birth of daughters, only that their magic is expressing, which theirs clearly is. Quite early, too. Remarkably so."

Hermione Jane honestly wanted to start flinging cutting curses at that point. Even if she couldn't get away with killing them, as that would bring down aurors for certain.

Then she had a brilliant idea, and snipped the cords holding up the woman's dress, so it fell off to pool around her feet. She sputtered, dreadfully embarrassed, but it was all resolved with the woman's quick use of a repairing charm.

Lucius' eyes over his oily smile had never left her face, calculating the advantage her shame had granted him. At this juncture she obviously wanted to get rid of the children more than hold out for a better deal or find another suitable customer. "Should I be inquiring where you got them?"

"Better you don't know," the woman returned, covering her moment of confusion when she herself found herself unable to recall more than the pickup point and time. Oh well, it had to have been one of her more secretive contacts.

"Fifty thousand," Lucius offered.

"They're worth twice that and you know it!" the woman hissed.

"Each." Lucius spread his hands in false sincerity. "You know I'm being generous. After all, the worth of a girl child is reduced by the value of the dowry I'm to come up with to make use of the arranged marriage contracts which are the only value they have to me."

"Oh, alright." The woman accepted a hefty bag of cash, counted it with a charm, then left in an angry huff. It was not half what she'd anticipated going into this sale.

"Well, my dears." Lucius bent down to pick the horrified twins up. "Shall I take you to your new home? Anastasia and Jacqueline? She even picked appropriate false names. I think I shall allow you both to keep them." He mused.

Jane looked at Ann, trying to communicate without words that as soon as they were out of the building and away from the anti-apparation wards she would stun the man and they could both get away. Only Lucius unknowingly foiled that plan by flooing home, holding both girls tight as he did so, emerging into the Malfoy mansion, calling, "Narcissa dear, look at the baby girls you so foolishly left at the Ministry creche. Aren't you lucky I was there and able to pick our daughters up on my way home?"

The real Narcissa Malfoy came to the top of the stairs. It was interesting for the two girls to watch her Slytherin mind process what she'd been told, then the woman was sweeping down the staircase to kiss him on the cheek. "Oh, you dear! I knew I'd forgotten something dreadfully important, but I couldn't think what it was. How are..?"

"Anastasia and Jacqueline," Lucius supplied smoothly.

"Nice names," Narcissa declared. "Shall we let them keep them?"

"Yes, I think we might." Lucius handed off the girls to House Elves that appeared to accept them from the master. "Our contact came up with them herself, so there's nothing there to trace to us."

Seconds later they were popped by the elves into the nursery of the Malfoy home. Baby Draco was there, and Ann quickly grabbed Jane's hand, pulling it down out of the arc of fire. "No! If you kill him who knows what alarms may sound?" she whispered fiercely, directly and soft into her twin's ear. "Let's just leave."

Jane acquired a nasty grin. "Ok," she whispered back. "But only by way of the library."

Twenty minutes later they got out of there, a diaper bag full of carefully selected shrunken books floating along behind them.

"Sorry about that," Jane apologized once they were safely out. "I didn't realize that every rich person I've met in the wizarding world had earned their money in illegal ways. And that woman was well-dressed enough she had to have been wealthy."

"Now we know why." Ann sighed. "Don't worry about it."

And still they got home in under the hour they'd been anticipating.

OoOoO

"Wacky Jackie! What is it you are doing?"

Jane cringed a bit at the hated nickname. Her sister knew she hated it, which was why she only used it when she disapproved of something she was doing. The girl looked back over her shoulder, after having composed herself and returned calmly, "You know you spoil mom's scolding pose by being less than a year old. You're too cute to pull it off."

Ann dropped her hands from off her nonexistent hips. "Answer the question! What is *that*," she pointed to what looked to be a third Hermione, "doing here? We're twins, NOT triplets! I get enough headaches trying to figure out how I got one sister."

Jane turned back to what she'd been doing. She was working in the Granger home's library, because the nanny didn't have a key and so couldn't get in there (she was still required to check books out that she wanted to study. Helen was being very strict with her on account of earlier messes). All around the room were hip-high (on an adult) stacks of photocopies that their parents and nanny were Confounded to ignore, taken from the Malfoy books.

Both Hermiones had assumed that the original Malfoy volumes would have been too easy for that family to find magically. So they'd taken them in to a muggle copy shop and had replications made.

The originals they'd sold for ready cash down Knockturn Alley.

"I'm trying out some of what I read in those books, just like you have."

Ann blushed. They both had been devouring the manuals on magic taken from the Malfoy residence like sharks drawn to blood, as it was the first magical reading material they'd had in almost a year, barring a few books on makeup tips neither were particularly interested in.

Before they couldn't afford much, now they were hoarding their galleons hoping to save up for a self-shrinking magical trunk with expanded interior, something they could hide easily so whatever magic they collected wouldn't be caught by their parents.

"What is it?" Ann asked, this time more gently.

"She is a clone. Don't worry, I can dismiss the magic holding her together at any time. I was going to try for a simulacrum, but we couldn't afford the ingredients."

Ann's thinking leapt ahead to where her sister was going with this. "You're learning how to make magical duplicates, hoping to save Harry's parents by substituting them with fakes when the time comes. But aren't clones potentially dangerous?"

"That's why I'm not *finishing* her," Hermione Jane declared strongly. "But, like I said, we can't afford the ingredients to make the walking potion that is a proper simulacrum. Nor could we afford to make a golem, much less several. So clones it will have to be."

"Still, those are dangerously real, and won't animate unless you risk a part of your magical core on loan to it." Ann disapproved.

"I'm hoping to clone them, not me," Jane declared. "But I have only myself to practice with. And even in case I do use one of mine, I think I can learn to hold it down to a minimum, and at any rate I'm hoping to withdraw the animation magic from them before they get hit by the killing curse, so no matter whose clone I'm using, they shouldn't lose anything when it gets killed. Still, even in worst case, losing the ability to cast a few spells in return for Harry's survival is a risk I'm willing to take. He means everything."

"Don't clones also have blank minds?" Ann joined her sister, proving that she too had read that fascinating book, probably thinking of these same possibilities.

"Yes," Jane proved she'd gotten further along on devouring that particular manual. "It's like, well, separating a finger or a toe, magically expanding that into a full person, then controlling it as a puppet. It has a brain, but no life experiences to guide its actions. I'll have to learn some very complex compulsion charms to program her behavior. But Harry is worth it."

"It won't be able to cast any spells, will it?" Hermione Ann wrinkled her nose.

Hermione Jane shook her head. "Not at the amount of magic I'm willing to risk animating it with. At best I want to risk the tiniest sliver of my core possible, as I'm not too fond of the idea of losing any of my magic at all, should it get destroyed before I recall the fragment. Although I wish we had more than one book on the subject of magic cloning. There has to be a better way. This one barely had any explanation beyond a few warnings."

Ann nodded in total agreement. "What part of your body are you using?"

"Some fat and baby teeth. It has to be flesh and bone, but those I can replace. Well, time will replace the baby teeth anyway. And it's easy to grow more fat."

Ann looked at her sister dubiously. "Ok, I know our baby teeth haven't come in yet. What are you using, really?"

Jane blushed. "Below the human sacrum, or tailbone, are an apparently random number of very small bones called caudal vertebrae which are thought to be evolutionary remnants of a now-vanished tail. They are tiny and without apparent function. Some people have four, some five. We have five, so I thought I could spare one for a little while I practiced this. It will return to me when I dispel this girl. It has before."

Ann scowled, but for an entirely different reason than one would think. She'd been through those same medical books as her sister had, so she didn't need a lecture. Actually, for the first time she began to see what others saw when they called her bossy.

Jane sighed. "And really, nothing less realistic than a full clone could fool Moldyshorts."

Ann pursed her lips in fear for her friend and sister. "Yes, but we'd better do something to augment the realism, because he'll expect the defenders to cast spells."

Jane sighed, only partially in relief. "Well, at least we know that Harry and his mother didn't. But you're right, James won't be convincing unless he puts up a fight."

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

Was going to get them to school in this chapter, but that required skimming over the records process, and that didn't seem right. But then it grew and grew... 


	4. Chapter 4

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Four

by Skysaber

OoOoO

During the week between making the appointment for getting their muggle records and actually showing up to create them, the Hermiones had a few problems to resolve, namely the lack of a pensieve for reviewing their memories of old papers showing their marks. It simply would not do to have shoddy work done to recreate their past!

On the face of it the solution was easy: get a hold of a pensieve. But important things are often simple, and simple things are always hard. A pensieve cost more galleons than the trunk they'd begun saving up hopefully for. They'd not be able to earn one in a year of writing articles, nor were they easy to get access to.

Still, they persevered. Like most enchanted objects, pensieves involved a great amount of arithmancy and runes, and Hermione had excelled at both of them. She'd done NEWT level charms work at the start of her fifth year, and was similarly ahead in all of her classes. Still, creating pensieves was beyond-NEWT level, and she wasn't advanced enough in either runes or arithmancy to make one.

So she wasn't able to even attempt to make one.

But she could come close.

They knew many of the basics on how to start, not the full advanced rune sets, but the principles they were based on, as well as many of the more primitive forms of them. And, driven by the need to make her records as accurate as possible as early as possible (because there were so many to duplicate, doing the job would take a whole lot of work and thus require a massive investment of time - one week wasn't nearly enough to have everything they wanted prepared) the first day they were home Hermione Ann inked the runes for memory enhancement around Hermione Jane's head, and vice versa, a partial set of runes for what would ultimately make a pensieve, in a ring much like a headband would cover (because that set of symbols had to be placed in a ring, and they wanted it where it would do them the most good), which they then covered up with makeup charms to avoid spooking out their parents.

It worked well enough, enabling them to do the recalls at sufficient clarity, even though it lent an odd echo and weird background static to their thoughts.

Then they began to use charmed quills created by Ann to make rough copies containing all the vital information. It was a lot of hard work, but well worth it in their eyes, and by both laboring together on the project, they had effectively two Hermione-weeks worth of work in on the project by the time it was due to be turned in, which meant of course that the quality was excellent, the material thoroughly covered, and they were nervous about it anyway.

OoOoO

Now it must be said that Hermione was not a tremendously creative individual. It was not that she could not, but more often she chose to learn the 'right way' of doing things, and then stuck with that 'right way' ever after.

This meant she unfortunately stuck to patterns that made her fairly predictable at times. And without realizing it, Hermione had developed a pattern for infiltrating the Ministry: to sneak in as babies carried by an adult.

She'd even corrected it to account for the last failure. Instead of using any old random witch that just happened by, they would have Jane create her clone, and it would take the dose of polyjuice left over that they hadn't used in last week's attempt. That would give them an adult Narcissa under their control. Then, to avoid her being recognized as Narcissa, they applied charms to change her hair color to brown, made it curly, then gave her a bottle of Aging Potion to make her look significantly older than the original.

It was felt that between the hair, age lines, and wearing a set of Helen Granger's clothes, no one who'd recognize the real Narcissa would connect her to the double. And, ultimately, they had to work with what they had. Saving as they were for that trunk, they couldn't afford much waste.

Every gold coin had to count.

So they entered the Ministry as babes in arms. Jane was getting some valuable practice in controlling her non-Narcissa clone, and it was their plan to go to the ladies lavatory on a floor above the department they were visiting. There the infants would take their own doses of Aging Potion to look twelve or thirteen, put on outfits borrowed from the back of the nanny's closet (shrunken to fit, of course) then they'd all troupe down to the Department of Muggle Relations for filing all of their paperwork and getting their pasts established.

That was the way it was supposed to work. It didn't.

No sooner had they arrived at the Ministry than alarms went off and they all got dumped on the ground as Jane's clone reverted to a baby clone awash in a sea of adult clothes instead of a Narcissa look-alike. Jane was already being picked up by a strange adult when Ann had enough presence of mind to shrink her mother's borrowed outfit and the diaper bag with their other clothes and potions in it, then banish them all behind a potted plant.

She barely had time to do even that, as all the babies were safely whisked away to a small chamber under guard.

Lucius Malfoy arrived scant moments after a floo call summoned him, sweeping into the room with a proud, "Ah, my daughters, rescued at last from that terrible woman who kidnapped them!"

Lucius was one smooth operator. Not even the girls, who were somewhat looking for it, caught the slight tick of the man as he saw three girls there instead of the expected two. No, instead he bent over to kiss each of them in turn, "Anastasia, Jacqueline, and Tatiana. You're safe at last."

As Ann and Jane shared a shocked look over how he'd gotten at least their two fake names right, Lucius fiercely turned to one of the nearby aurors. "Have you caught the woman who took them?"

"No, sir. But we've sealed the building. She can't have gone far!"

"Find her," Lucius ordered. "And bring Rookwood up from the Department of Mysteries. I want to know if there are any traces of how it is she stole my daughters from me."

~Uh Oh.~ Both Hermione shared a look of panic, and quickly began to feign sleep. They had no idea if this new man was going to be a mind-reader or not, but for safety's sake they resolved not to look him in the eyes.

After all, being real children, there wasn't much that could be discovered about them if they kept an enemy from reading their minds. For safety's sake, Jane withdrew the fragment of her magical core she'd been using to animate her clone, the one Lucius had named Tatiana. There was nothing it could do to help them right now, and it was better to not risk it if she couldn't use it productively.

She would've withdraw the clone entirely, but couldn't under the unmoving gaze of Lucius without tipping him off to what it was - and the fact that she, as its creator, was reabsorbing it. No, that would blow nearly all their secrets right there! Clones were advanced magic, and no real baby would have anywhere near the ability to create or control one!

So one comatose body was less suspicious than dispelling it in front of him.

Sooner than they'd like, the Unspeakable was there and both girls recognized the stooped over, pockmarked wizard as one of the Death Eaters they knew about from the future. Well, that made it no wonder why Lucius Malfoy had requested him. They could trust each other.

The man subjected them to a quick series of tests with a probity probe, but as they weren't concealing anything that went alright.

"Compulsion charms, loads of them, complex ones at that," Rookwood suddenly declared, starting at 'Tatiana' aka Jane's clone.

"That explains how she was able to get them to exit the manor's wards," Lucius mused as his friend waved his wand in complex patterns, casting spells over all three girls to counter the charms he'd uncovered on the first one tested.

Subsequent testing revealed they were all clean of further compulsions, which was fine as the two non-clones had never carried any. But Rookwood was already speaking, "Had they been changed since you got them?"

"My elves tell me no."

"Then that's how your chick did it. Diapers were probably portkeys keyed to take them out the moment they crossed the ward-line."

It was only through an effort of will that the Hermiones avoided wincing. There went their emergency escape route!

"Are they now?" Lucius asked with an elegantly raised eyebrow.

"Yes." Rookwood snorted. "That's how I know that was the method used before."

Snapping his fingers, Lucius had house elves change the girls into new diapers, who did their best not to be dreadfully embarrassed. They did squirm to block direct view of their parts, though, somewhat ruining the 'napping baby' illusion.

Neither man cared, or knew enough about babies to detect the fault in their disguise.

"Aha! Well, would you look at that?" Rookwood crowed.

Jane risked a peek at Ann and gasped. The runes for memory retention they'd painted on their heads that morning for a last little bit of touch-up on the paperwork were now glowing through the makeup!

"Now that is a brilliant trick, Lucius." Rookwood gloated. "And it explains how babies could accept so much programming. Didn't I hear they'd stolen some of your books?"

"Yes." The Malfoy Head smoothly prompted more data. They'd all been recovered, but it had still been an annoyance.

"Well, there's how. Ordinary kids can't be compulsed to do anything ordinary kids couldn't normally do, but with those runes you'd boost their memory retention enough to be able to instruct them to use a device or two, like a book-swallowing bag shrunken and concealed in one of those diapers your elves didn't change. But whoever drew this set made a couple of mistakes. Here, this one rune is for an inanimate device. You change it to a person..."

Suddenly Ann's world went white and she blacked out, Jane following moments later.

OoOoO

The babies woke up groaning in unfamiliar beds, not knowing who they were or how they got there, although they quickly sorted that out.

Hermione stood up, holding onto the crib wall. Looking around the room revealed it to be a very posh and upper class nursery, and the animated plushies, flying cotton clouds and moving photographs showed plainly that it was a wizarding household.

Then she saw two other faces peering at her over the rims of two other cribs.

Each blinked.

"How could that happen!?!" all three Hermiones shouted simultaneously.

There followed much sputtering and indignation. Finally the one wearing a pink jumper with the name 'Anastasia' on the front broke through to say, "Alright, hold on, one at a time. Did anyone stay awake to see what happened?"

The Hermione in a pale green baby jumper bearing the name 'Jacqueline' shook her head. "No, I didn't. What I want to know is how is the clone moving?"

"I might be able to figure that out, *if* I knew which adoption ritual they'd used, OR whatever they did to our runes to make us black out like that!"

Both of the previous girls stared at the third, who had spoken.

"What?" the girl wearing a purple jumper with the name Tatiana emblazoned on it asked. "It's a perfectly relevant question."

"Well, if I'm Ann," the one bearing the name Anastasia postulated, "and if she's Jane." She pointed to one bearing the label Jacqueline. "Then you must be the clone, right?"

The third Hermione looked down at her jumper and read the front, then her legs gave out in shock, dumping her back onto her rump before she looked up and sputtered, "There must be some mistake!"

Each sat in silence for a moment.

"Ok, there has to be a logical, reasonable explanation for all this," the one called Tatiana postulated, feeling the most desperate of the lot, so the most pushed for explanations. "I can't be the clone! I remember everything! It has to be one of you!"

The ones thinking they were Jane and Ann turned to look at each other.

"Well, that's a frightening thought," the one in the pink jumper admitted.

Pondering the question for a moment, freed of the others' panic, the green jumpered one came up with a solution. "I've got it!" she proudly announced. "It's simple, really. All we've got to do is test our wandless magic. Ann has very different charms than Jane, so whichever ones we can do shows who we are!"

Ann very quickly summoned a plushy to her.

Jane blasted another to bits.

Both looked very proudly towards the third girl, who concentrated a moment before she summoned her own plushy.

The two now each thinking they were Ann stared at each other. The trouble got worse when it was revealed that any one of the three of them could summon plushies, repair them, or blast them apart using their wandless, wordless magic. In short, they each could cast the full catalogs of spells mastered by both Ann and Jane. They even quizzed each other, and they'd read all of the same books as each other, to the same degree, even those Malfoy tomes they hadn't both quite gotten to finish.

Ann, for example, had only read a part of the tome on cloning, but now they, all three, knew that book as well as Jane, who'd devoured the entire thing. But what Jane had not spent time on, but Ann had, they all knew as well as Ann.

Checking themselves and each other over with their small amount of medical charms even revealed that the small bone the real Jane ought to be missing (having used it to create the clone) none were. They all possessed full and complete bodies.

They were all even able to make normal clones, ones that did no thinking and had to be animated like a puppet to move. Previously only Jane had possessed that skill.

A short and very frustrated amount of pondering later, each girl sitting with her arms crossed and pouting in the exact same pose in her own crib, they all spoke together, "It's obvious!"

"Alphabetical order," the one bearing the Anastasia label insisted. "That way we don't step on each other's sentences all of the time."

"Agreed," Jacqueline nodded, then realized she'd used up her turn.

The one in the purple baby jumper took her turn to offer up the explanation they'd all reached independent of each other. "Ok. None of us can say for certain what happened, but from the results it's obvious that the blank mind of the clone is no longer blank, right?"

"Agreed, and the way that seems to have been achieved is probably the same way that we all have full sets of the original memories of both Ann and Jane," Ann continued for her, who, like the others, could both recall calling another 'Wacky Jackie' and being called that by her sister. They'd all determined they had full recall of both sides of those exchanges.

"And we've also determined that none of us can dispel the clone, whoever that is," Jane concluded, adding the final bit of empirical evidence they had discovered.

The third Hermione held out a lock of her hair, they were all identical, but lighter than normal. "From the nearly blonde color of our hair, and how much straighter it is than usual, we can assume that we've been through a magical adoption ritual."

"That would hold with what we know of the Malfoys." Ann agreed. "Their pureblood first philosophy demands it. And, while we have no way of knowing for certain, such a thing might possibly interfere with or have unpredictable results on a clone." She shook her head. "We don't have enough data to know for certain."

"We can postulate from what we have, though," Jane pressed on eagerly. "Just think: each of us has been using spells. That says whichever one of us was the clone, she has magic now, equal to the others! That says whatever was done changed the clone substantially."

The one they all slightly suspected was the clone sat down hard again, smiling weakly. "Well, we all know there were only two Hermiones a day or so ago..." Then she perked up. "But there was only *one* before that! So if a second, why not a third?"

The other two looked at each other, communicating by expressions.

Turning back, both smiled.

"Alright," Ann declared. "We'll call you Tina."

Jane shrugged, holding onto her crib bars. "Might as well keep the names our jumpers give us, as really we have no way of knowing which of us were originally Ann or Jane."

"And Lucius was able to pick us out by our fake names before," Tina nodded, also standing to hold onto her crib bars. "So we might as well assume he continued to be able to do so."

Ann had been thinking. "I know this once puzzled me terribly, and here is almost the same puzzle all over again, but somehow I seem to have acquired Jane's attitude toward it. We are here, that's enough; and without more data (especially regarding secret rituals Lucius and Narcissa are *never* going to tell us about, or admit to having done I certain) we may never know more than we do now."

Tina nodded, adding, "I think, very briefly, for a moment there we were all one Hermione again, then somehow got split into the three available bodies. But that's only conjecture. I'm sure even the people who did the ritual don't realize what they'd done, because they didn't know many of the details about us to start with."

"Since no one involved knows more than half the details and isn't likely to share, it's unlikely anyone will ever fully understand what happened," Jane agreed sagely.

All gave off a bit of a mournful sigh at the lost knowledge.

"So, escape plan?" all three together asked brightly.

OoOoO

"I am SOO going to learn a Levicorpus spell!" all three Hermiones muttered simultaneously, as it would have made that situation so easy to have just lifted each other out magically that way. Using Wingardium Leviosar on their diapers just hadn't been the same. For one there was the danger of tipping over one's sister and spilling her out of her levitating britches, for another it just wasn't nearly as comfortable to be lifted up by ones underpants.

The girls' nursery was next door to Draco's (and they still couldn't kill him, they realized that now without having to grab each other's arms).

Then they found Lucius' study.

Stepping inside, the three approached the desk and began to look over things. Jane found an account statement for the Malfoy fortune and was absorbed in reading that. Tina was going through the incoming mail, while Ann gravitated to the outgoing box just because that was the end of the table she found herself on.

Moments later, Ann grabbed a quill and began furiously scribbling. She was mere seconds into this before a house elf they didn't recognize appeared and snatched the paper away from her. "Yous is not allowed to be changing Master's paperwork!"

"I haven't!" Ann squeaked, afraid all her plans of the moment would be undone.

"Yes you is! House elfes be knows if young charges lie!" the elderly elf sternly scolded. It wasn't Dobby, so the other two Hermiones feared they might not be able to fool it.

Ann steadied herself, then returned calmly, "I have added nothing."

Satisfied, the old house elf popped back away, taking the outgoing mail with him to send off so it did not further tempt the children.

Her two sisters stared at Ann in disbelief. They'd seen her writing on that form.

"Really," she grinned wickedly. "All I added were a couple of zeros here or there. A zero means 'no value', so I added nothing. The *place* I added nothing means something. But we don't need to tell him that!"

All three broke down into simultaneous giggles.

"So, share!" the two non-Ann Hermiones demanded. "We want details!"

"Okay!" Ann agreed. "That was the form Lucius is using to establish trust accounts for the new Malfoy progeny - us, in other words. The initial deposit was going to be fifty thousand, I made it five hundred thousand. All that is reserved as our bride price, we can't spend it. I'd guess it's there as a dowry to lure in a husband. But apparently they caught the child dealer who sold us and executed her, and the Malfoys were granted her estate in recompense for her 'kidnapping' of us. Lucius wrote that ten percent of her net worth should be split among our three accounts for personal monies. Well, now a hundred percent will be. Also we had ten thousand galleons of pocket money made available, refreshed annually out of the main Malfoy vaults. That became a hundred thousand, and that allowance cuts off when we are 170 years old, not 17!"

Tina laughed. "So if we live long enough we'll bankrupt the Malfoys? Draco won't inherit a thing?"

"No," Jane shook her head. "I saw the account statement. He'll never miss it."

"Probably just as well," Ann sighed. "If Lucius caught what I'd just done, he'd undo it."

All three sighed together, and chorused. "Still, I hope it never matters. Let's all go collect our inheritances!"

OoOoO

"Yous is no being allowed to leave!" The ancient house elf appeared to scold them when they were still roughly ten feet from the ward line, all carrying loads of books. "And you no is allowed to be taking books out."

The elf snapped his fingers, and the piles of beloved featherlight tomes in their arms suddenly vanished, disappearing back into the mansion's library.

"Surely we can go on outings together?" Ann was the first to think to ask.

"Babieses can only go on outingses with Master or Mistress Malfoy, and elfses being told to watch for nasty polee-jew-suh imposterators!" the elf told them firmly.

~Plan One out the window,~ all three girls thought. ~Plan Two?~

They all turned to head back, intending to go to the boy's nursery.

As if reading their minds, the elf scolded, "And young Master no count as Master for taking sisters on outingses!!"

~Oh, pooh!~ all three girls thought, coming to a halt.

Due to not being able to stand at precisely the same place as each other, but rather in formation, each girl saw slightly different things. Turning about, Tina caught a brief glimpse of an old dead tree like they used to hang people from in old westerns, and briefly enjoyed a thought of hanging Draco from it when she suddenly found the elf in her face. "You is no hurtses young master! No one is being let hurt the young master!"

"Alright! I understand!" Tina threw up her hands to ward the old elf off, knowing from Harry's stories what one of those could do to someone trying to hurt someone they defended.

Jane had turned about the other way, and caught sight of a different tree, one hanging about half its branches over the property ward line. "Hey, can I climb that?"

"Young mistresses must stay inside of wards," the old elf repeated solemnly.

Ann, catching on instantly (as had Tina, but Ann was faster, not having to turn as much to see the tree indicated), cried out, "Oh! But it would be so much fun!"

"We'd stay safe, we promise!" the girls all agreed.

Now the elf appeared doubtful. "Must stay on this side of wards."

"Oh, but we can climb it on this side, can't we?" Jane insisted. "At most we'd put a finger over, and that's ok, right?"

"We'd never cross *all* the way over the wards, unless it some grownup said it was ok," Ann speedily agreed, thinking she could easily get her parents, her *real* parents, mom and dad Granger, to welcome them to their real home.

Now the elf appeared torn. Finally he nodded. "Must not cross all the way over wards. Body must stay on this side."

"How many bodies?" Tina pounced upon the verbal opening, just as her sisters were inhaling to do. "I only have one, so one of my bodies must stay on this side, alright?"

"Young mistresses must keep one body on this side of wards," the elf agreed.

Poof!

Suddenly three clones were there.

"This is the body I'll be leaving on this side. Tah!" Jane skipped away across the ward lines, to be followed by her two sisters moments after saying the same things.

The elf could only stand there and look confused.

OoOoO

It was only after they'd gotten safely back to the Granger home (and compelled the nanny to say "it is ok", for no reason the nanny could determine) and gotten to their bedroom that they realized the problem.

"Only two cribs!" they all chorused in fearful dismay.

"I'll share!" Ann and Jane blurted suddenly, turning to plead with Tina into thinking it was alright and she was welcome - which she most certainly was.

But Tina spent a moment in thought as the other two grew concerned over her. "Okay, but to do this right we've got to convince mom and dad they've always had three daughters, and that means altering photos, records, and the minds of friends, business associates and extended family members."

The other two saw simultaneously this was not an overnight project she was talking about, and she was right - this would have to be done right to be done at all, as they were going to have to live with the results for the rest of their lives. They didn't have any confidence in most Ministry workers and didn't want any mixups or complications ruining things for their family, things like botched memory charms blanking out their parents' minds.

So, best to limit the Ministry's opportunities to screw things up.

"To do that," Tina continued. "We'll probably have to learn the Obliviate spell, so we can do it right, as well as go to the Department of Muggle Relations like we'd planned, but this time with one extra member, and writing in my birth alongside of yours so I can legally exist."

"It could be another week, since we missed our appointment today," Ann sorrowed, having been able to check the calendar behind Jane faster than Jane could turn to see it. This was still they day they'd intended to go to the Ministry, but the hour of the appointment was long passed.

"Well," Hermione Tina was thinking furiously. "That could be a good thing in disguise. How about this: I go back to the Malfoy Manor for a time. That allows me to control the other two clones so the Malfoys think they have the full trio of us with them and don't come searching. They have had us in their clutches for hours now, and nearly lost us once, so who knows what safeguards they might have put in place to avoid misplacing us again? I can look into what those might be and how to block them using their library, and see what I can do about avoiding our being caught by other means, once we fully break loose the next time."

Tina raised her head, meeting their eyes much more brightly. "And speaking of their library, I could be looking up the limits of house elves, what they can do and how we might get around that, should it become necessary to avoid them or trick them another time. Also, I might see if they have any more information on clones, how they work and all that."

The other two Hermiones stared at her speechless.

"Can't we take turns?" both blurted when they could finally speak around the mouthfuls of drool over the prospect of being alone with that library, further raiding it for knowledge.

OoOoO

~Hah! They're just jealous,~ Tina gloated to herself, buried deep in stacks and piles of open books that came up well over her head.

The Malfoys cared even less about the day to day maintenance of their children than the Grangers did. So long as the nanny (or house elves, in this case) raised no complaints then everything must be fine, right?

Heck, the Grangers were excellent parents, they just didn't see their kids as much as they would like. The Malfoys just didn't care. Their kids were pieces on a chessboard, to be moved around for advantage; otherwise ignored. And babies werent interesting until they began to grow up.

~But they have an *excellent* library!~ Tina gloated, happy it was now night and everyone was in bed.

Although, to be merciful, she had a few auto-notes quills copying down a handful of tomes that she would shrink and mail on to her book-deprived doubles. She could feel for them, as they were her after all, after a fashion.

They'd all been the original Hermione once.

Besides, duplicating the Malfoy library had become something of a quest. Her doubles had already purchased their own expanded trunks, fitted with many more nifty options than they ever thought they'd have been able to afford, and one for her as well, tapping into those petty cash funds set up by Lucius that he most likely didn't think that they would even know about for many years, and so hadn't thought to restrict early access on.

~Most likely, most of what the Malfoys know can be found in their library,~ Tina thought to herself for the umpteenth time. ~They'd have picked up some from their friends or on Death Eater missions. But the bulk of it, they'll either have learned at Hogwarts, or here, and I know most of what Hogwarts teaches - probably more than they do.~ she gloated.

~So if they have invisible chains, or unexpected means of finding us that only wait for them to realize they've lost us, that information should be found in here.~

Of course, much as she wanted to focus, she was still Hermione, and so couldn't resist looking in on tantalizing hints revealed in her general reading. The search for clues on any theoretical anti-kidnapping charms was threatening to be put on hold in pursuit of fascinating tangents when she came across a hint that led to another book on cloning.

It was only the second cloning spell she'd ever heard of, but it looked to be much more complete than the version they used. Still, it had its own drawbacks, and wasn't something she or her sisters would ever...

Tina popped up from her seat, scattering books off of piles behind her as she went up to young Draco's room. "I'm not allowed to harm you," she declared to the month-old baby.

Moments later the girl called, "Dobby!"

"Yes mistress?"

Once again back in the Yoda ears and tea cozy, Hermione Tina rubbed her hands together in distress. "Mistress say Hermy must polish wand or Hermy gets to slam ears in oven door! Dobby fetch mistress' wand so Hermy can polish?"

Dobby popped out and returned with Narcissa's wand. Tina took it, and Dobby vanished.

Then Tina grinned down at Draco, "but no one ever said anything about annoying, confusing or befuddling you - *especially* if I think it's for your own good!"

And with that she transfigured Draco into a puppy.

Frowning, she transfigured him back. ~This would get caught too easily. Hmm...~

"Dobby?"

The little elf was back.

Hermy the house elf squirmed as if terribly uncomfortable. "Young mistresses, they is asking for puppies! Dobby being good house elf and going to purchase puppies and lady dog for taking care of them?"

Poof!

Seconds later there was a recently birthed litter of puppies and their Irish Setter mother laying on a pet bed in the girls' nursery, all recently purchased with dog treats and all.

Fighting to restrain a cackle, young Hermione Tina waved her newly purloined wand a few times to get the feel of it, before casting a long incantation on Draco - soon there were two of him in that bed.

Transfiguring the original into a puppy again, Tina lifted him up and carried him into the girls' nursery. "Now, 'brother' dear, we are going to play a game. It's called, 'How Long Will It Take The Adults To Notice?' And no house elves can tell, that's cheating!" She could almost feel a few pairs of eyes on her wince or widen.

Placing Draco-puppy among with the other puppies (mongrels, she noted amusedly), the eleven month old Hermione straightened. "Now, be a good doggy, Draco. It will do you a world of good to be a redhead, for a change. And think of how much fun you'll have as a doggy! This will really broaden your horizons!"

Sighing in happiness for countless jibes now partially avenged, Hermione sat down to put some polish on Narcissa's wand, wanting to be honest about that before asking Dobby to replace it, inwardly wondering if there hadn't been only two Black sisters.

After all, the spell she'd found in the Malfoy library was how to make a female clone of a boy that had complete memories of the original and its own magic core, but focused all of her sexual desires on the original male version of herself.

Oddly enough, the price to cast it was specific - a rib from the boy in question.

They'd never notice the 'Draco' in that crib was a girl, as neither parent there ever changed diapers, and somehow she knew the elves wouldn't be able to say anything. It would be thirteen years or so before the girl they thought was Draco started to develop the urges and curves that would inevitably give her away.

Tina only wondered if they'd really wait that long before discovering this.

Hmm, and if they did, it might be interesting to note Lucius and Narcissa's reaction to their 'son' having an unhealthy interest in animals, specifically one of the family dogs.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

Ahh, never meant to spend this much on what was, in effect, a tangent. But I had fun. 


	5. Chapter 5

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Five

by Skysaber

OoOoO

"Five. Five spies in the Order, people more loyal to the Death Eaters than to us, and Peter was one of them." James rubbed the back of his neck, sore from the strain of his shock, pacing as he tried to cope with the information a simple test had discovered.

Lily could hardly believe the news, in spite of her having witnessed it on her own.

"Five." James repeated, still pacing. "Plus people like Dung, who care more for what they can milk their membership for than they ever did about winning this war. Five turncoats, plus at least seven parasites no more loyal to us than scavengers. No wonder we're losing."

James Potter collapsed into an easy chair.

"Five."

"And Peter was one of them," Lily repeated, rubbing her arms as if she was cold.

"Dumbledore I don't know to call a traitor or one of the scavengers," James repeated in shock. "When I got everyone to stand up and declare the principles that motivated them and the side they served, I did *not* expect our leader to declare his most important goal was to save the enemy's troops! Not victory, not justice, not freedom from persecution for those being murdered. The innocent had no rights. It was the enemy he cared for."

Lily said nothing, feeling particularly bad about that revelation.

Albus had been sacrificing Order members' lives to gain information - information that he sat on and did nothing with, hoping against hope that the victorious Death Eaters would just up and decide they didn't enjoy being on the winning side and jump ship.

Was the man *insane*?

"The Order is going to fall apart over this," James declared. "I shouldn't have tested the whole group all together, where everyone could hear the others' answers. Now we all know that Dumbledore never fought to win. He was hoping Voldy would give up."

Lily sobbed, her image of the Headmaster had shattered irrevocably that night. He'd come out openly admitting that he'd always felt wizards should rule over muggles, and that in his view purebloods were the ideal of all wizardkind, with muggleborns a necessary evil to be controlled and molded. Dumbledore's only disagreement with Voldemort was he felt the current dark lord was going about it the wrong way - Too much violence and killing.

That had been a crushing revelation. But they had all lost a lot of their illusions that night. Even Molly had been horrified that, in pursuit of his power-to-the-purebloods agenda, to help propagate their race, the Headmaster had even been considering pressuring her to engage one of her younger boys to one of the newly revealed Malfoy triplets.

Although what he'd been considering offering to Lucius Malfoy to get him to accept such an arrangement was anyone's guess. But it couldn't have been good. Never mind that both families despised the other and that the enticement would had to have been extreme.

Sirius appeared through the fire, looking every bit as haggard as they felt. Remus came through a moment after, looking equally mad and bad. A part of James expected and waited for a third flare of that fire and Peter to emerge as well - only that would never happen again.

"The Order of The Phoenix just went down in flames. Everyone's scattering. If they can't believe in Dumbledore, who can they?" Remus announced, feeling more tired than any full moon transformation had done to him yet.

Lily raised her head sorrowfully. "Do you think our letter writer could have caused this? Do you think whoever it was could've meant for this to happen?"

"What letter?" Sirius asked, suddenly on guard.

James rose, going to a table he opened a secret drawer. Retrieving the sheets of paper from it, he handed them to his friends. Sirius and Remus read them together.

Their eyebrows raised.

"No," Sirius concluded at last, an odd look on his face, trying to fight the amusement he felt at the insults to their common enemy and the idea of Moldyshorts limping around on one leg. He waved the sheets over to Remus. "This just warned you there *could* be something rotten. The Dung Eaters would rather we have continued on as we were, so we'd be easy pickings for them. I can't see them warning us, not like this."

"Not like this," Remus agreed, impressed as he read in spite of himself.

"Besides," Sirius grinned, his good humor restored. "That letter just reminded me of the most important thing."

"Oh?" The Potter couple looked up from where their heads had hung in misery.

"Yeah," Sirius grinned. "It's not Dumbledore who'll win this war - it's Harry."

A light seemed to go on in all their faces.

"We've got our focus for rallying the troops: Our son, the Chosen One," James nodded.

Sirius, semi-seriously leaned over Lily's shoulder to peer at her belly. Tapping at it with a finger, he said, "Hey? Feel like coming out of there early?"

"Hush, you." Lily swatted his hand away, feeling better regardless.

James lunged up out of his seat, grabbing hold of a sheet of parchment.

"What are you doing?" was the general consensus, thought by everyone but spoken by Sirius, although Lily had gone so far as to lean forward to ask (hard with her belly).

"Writing back to our mysterious benefactor," he replied, writing intently as he opened his heart to reveal just how greatly this experience had shocked him. "This person successfully pointed out traps we'd all got caught in. I want to see if they have any more helpful advice."

OoOoO

Ann looked up, startled, as a familiar big eagle owl came to rest on the deck railing behind the Granger home. Standing up, she took the letter offered. "I thought we'd seen all of you we were ever going to," she mused thoughtfully.

Guiltily, she looked back at the flying memos she'd been taking her target practice against.

If this was Jane she wouldn't have felt guilty. But knowing she was Hermione Ann, Ann felt something of a responsibility to act like Hermione Ann. Likewise, Hermione Jane felt some responsibility to act out her own personality, even though they remembered both points of view, and that did change things substantially; nevertheless they knew that they had acted a certain way, and so felt required to lean that way at least a little.

So they had begun slipping back into their old roles, if colored a bit by the other's skills and perceptions. Ann now knew what it had been like, those precious few minutes before the original Hermione had tried time travel the first time, trying to save Harry.

It, um, changed her perceptions a bit to have lived through that. Of course, she felt a tiny bit guilty letting that revelation swing her point of view all the way over. Ann felt her role was, at least in part, to serve as a counterpart to Jane.

Hermione Tina, on the other hand, felt no such responsibility from what they understood. She was free to act whichever way she thought best, without hidden guilt driving her to behave 'properly', ie, in the manner previously established for her.

There was no manner previously established for her, as she hadn't existed previously. So she felt no drive to 'fill her own shoes' so to speak.

Going back inside, Ann entered an ongoing conversation between the previously mentioned Jane and Tina.

"You did WHAT to Draco?!?" Ann shrieked, catching just a bit.

The nanny of course said nothing, since she was off preparing to go to college part time to get the required exams to enter her degree course. Both she and their real parents had been confounded not to notice that would leave the children alone for half the day.

But caring for little Romeo was not a burden, and the girls did enjoy their privacy. Although their poor mother was expecting another baby in another nine months. That was cutting it too close for her health, but they'd forgotten they'd changed her pills!

Now Helen was making the occasional biting remark about getting little Richard snipped.

Tina, who was visiting for the afternoon for an exchange of information, remained unruffled. "I don't see what the problem is."

"The problem is Draco is a dog," Ann reminded.

"I fail to see how that changes anything," Tina remarked coldly. "He always was."

Jane couldn't help it and broke down in giggles. "No, actually, that's flattering him a bit," she remarked. "Dog is several steps up from where he was."

Ann tried not to reveal how humorous she found it too. She was supposed to be the responsible one here! She crossed her arms and declared, "Well, it's not fair to punish him for things he hasn't done yet."

"Au contraire," Tina raised a delicate finger in protest. "In our personal timeline, our own past, he did them. Events have been rewound so he doesn't remember them, but he did them. Not only did them, but barring any changes, would do them again."

"You can't punish him for something he doesn't remember! He..."

Tina cut off Ann's protest. "So if you go out and willfully commit murder, then I Obliviate you of the deed, you are innocent? No. It doesn't work like that. Left unchanged, Draco would become the exact same beast we remember, and I'm not going to put up with that."

"Couldn't you try to change him?" Ann pled, wishing she had some support, and feeling a strange suspicion she was on the wrong side here.

"Oh, let's see, let me think," Tina twiddled her thumbs, looking up at their ceiling. "Could I exert more influence on him than both his parents together? No. Would I be safe trying? Well, let's see, Death Eater parents who go out and murder everyone who disagrees with them? Nothing to stop them from smothering an inconvenient child who rebels against their philosophy and is trying to 'corrupt' their heir? Hmm, I'd be dead inside of a week."

"Surely they're not..."

"That bad?" Tina cut Ann off again. "You don't have dinner with them three times a week. You don't have to listen to Lucius gleefully relaying how he 'snuffed out some blood traitor's line' and murdered not only the mother and the father, but their children. Nor do you have to listen to Narcissa egging him on! Don't tell *ME* they aren't that bad!!" Tina shouted fiercely.

Ann cringed, holding up her hands to placate her younger sister. "Okay! I didn't know!"

"Hm," Tina huffed, tossing her head and eying her sisters, before sharing, "You know, some of those conversations I wonder... if they ever found out how big our trust accounts are I think they'd kill us just to reclaim the dowry money. They ARE that bad!!"

Tina sighed, relaxing her shoulders before admitting, "And you know what? They've killed people already for doing less than trying to pervert a pureblood heir away from what they believe is proper behavior. As one daughter among many, a daughter they never wanted enough for Narcissa to bear, I wouldn't stand a chance. We are chattel, breeding sows the lot of us. We have no value to them aside from the alliances we could bring them. Heck, Lucius boasts over how he's 'admittedly failed to exert himself on behalf of another Death Eater', getting his comrade killed, just so he could have an extra *fifty* galleons share of the plunder money, so trivial an amount it doesn't even count for loose change for a man as wealthy as him! No, it doesn't matter how rich he is, he's obsessed with getting more power and wealth. And I really think he'd kill me for the money we tricked him into putting into our vaults if he knew about it. He wouldn't even hesitate over the worse crime of trying to lead Draco away from being the proper pureblood prince Lucius intends him to be."

"Wow," Jane admitted, wide-eyed. "I had no idea it was so bad."

"It's that bad," Tina nodded resignedly.

Jane found herself in the position of peacemaker. Ann had overextended on her objections and Tina had defended a mite too strongly, so it was up to her to patch things up. "I guess we ought to trust your judgment," she told Tina. "After all, we aren't the ones on scene. So we don't have as much information."

Luckily this simple statement mollified all parties. Each girl heaved a sigh of relief.

Jane decided to seal this up further. "Ok, let's view this as sort of a prophecy. Actually, it's better than one as there are no fiddly little phrases or guesswork that all turns out to be wrong at the end. We know *exactly* what would happen if we failed to change things. And in this war it has already been demonstrated that it is acceptable behavior to mark someone as a target just for what they might do in the future. They all do it, Dumbledore's faction as well as the rest."

Ann gave that a moment of thought. Wetting her lips, she declared, "You know, that could even be taken as the theme of both wars: this one, and the one in the future. Prophecy, win or die by how well you make use of it. And our information is better than anyones'."

"So we're all agreed?" Jane asked.

"Do you really think they would kill you?" Ann couldn't believe how much this thought distressed her, and part of her wanted to discount it as unreal.

"Do you want to take my place?" Tina retorted, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Yes! They'd kill me if I was old enough to understand what they were saying and not agree with them fervently enough, but luckily they think I'm too young to do anything but crawl now. Getting away with disobedience is out of the question, and leading others into disobedience is worse! I'm beginning to suspect Draco wasn't an only child, or that we aren't the first ones they've purchased, just that the others failed to toe the line, making proper obeisance to their sick ideals!" Tina calmed herself, then answered sadly, "I was just going over their library, you know what for, and during my research have already found rituals that can only be powered by the sacrifice of an innocent young girl like myself. The thing is, there are suspicious blood stains on some of those pages. I think they've already used them. And I don't doubt for a moment they'd use us as their sacrificial victims if they wanted to use them again! Dead or alive, our only use to them is to increase their power."

Tina actually shuddered, admitting, "They are without natural affection and feel nothing of the normal love a parent has for a child. No, if I felt for a moment that I could get away with it, that the elves wouldn't stop me, or I wouldn't be overpowered by the wards or the Malfoy adults personally, I'd kill them first, just to have some degree of safety."

Ann now looked sorrowful, gaze dropping to the floor. "I guess... I guess I never wanted to believe in evil before. Not in the direct and personal kind anyway. I always wanted to think that people could be redeemed."

Jane now rolled her eyes. "Well, we know where that got Dumbledore."

"And the magical world with him," Tina agreed, nodding along. "Utterly lost in the grip of an evil they did not fight hard enough, because they never felt it was right to oppose it, just on the off chance the people doing it would decide it wasn't fun anymore and jump ship."

She grew cold and frosty. "I am not going to concern myself with the welfare of those who were my enemies. If they want to redeem themselves, they are welcome to try and earn it on their own efforts. But I don't have infinite capacity, and I choose to spend it aiding those I know are worthwhile. If you were smart, you'd do the same."

Ann winced at the rebuke.

"We can't save everyone," Tina continued. "We don't even know we can save Harry. And without him, all is lost. The more attention we divert on side projects, the less likely saving him would be, and I'd rather die than lose Harry again - because I know that death would be better than the torture, rape and humiliations that await us if the other side wins again."

"Okay, new rule:" Jane raised her finger pointedly drawing attention to herself. "Redemption is a good concept, but our first responsibility is toward those who haven't done anything wrong. Dumbledore has already proven that offering forgiveness to people who don't want it doesn't do anyone any good. So if we have any efforts to spare outside of the quest to help Harry, we help the innocent first. And should anyone we know to be or have been an enemy agent want to change sides they'll have to work for it, and show a true spirit of change, or else they'll remain a legitimate target. No creatures like Snape. We can't afford the holes in our defenses brought by those who want to play both sides. And it's not worth our while to drag anyone kicking and screaming into the Light."

Tina folded her arms. "Because we are at war. It's time to act like soldiers, not relationship counselors. We're here to win, not make someone feel better about their mother. If we can't secure that essential victory, then nothing else makes any difference."

"And Draco?" Ann winced at the glares directed to her and resolved to be less stupid in the future. "Hey! I'm trying to play Devil's Advocate here!"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Ann, I know you see yourself as the good one, but try to be more rational about it, ok? Different rules and goals apply in peace than during war. During war, redeeming an enemy is not your priority, defeating him is. Nobody is helped by forgetting that. In fact, try it in a muggle army and your own side will execute you for 'consorting with the enemy'. Sometimes kindness to criminals is cruelty to the innocent. I don't want to be enabling the people who tried to kill us! We already had enough of that from Dumbledore protecting them from justice - and all they did was try again!"

"I'm just trying to make sure we examine things from all sides!" Ann objected.

Tina sighed heavily. "Well then, clearly, as a human Draco was doomed to be exactly the evil little sycophant we knew him to be last time. Being a dog might be the best thing for him. At least this way his parents aren't working to shape his belief system, and as a dog he just might learn some honest values, like how to work, enjoy friendship and have fun."

"It's the best chance he has of turning out decently," Jane agreed earnestly. "It's actually the lowest-effort, highest-payout reform effort we could do for him. Best of all it should teach him some badly needed humility."

Ann conceded, "Ok, I guess that with parents like that growing up as a dog really is the best alternative Draco has of living a decent life. At least this way his parents won't be pouring poison in his ear. How else can we help him?"

Angry now, Tina froze her with a gaze. "Let's make something *very* clear here. I don't care one bit about that arrogant piece of slime! He grew up to be every bit as much a monster as his parents, and I'll not waste one tear on him if he dies early this time - by my hand, or any other. The Malfoy family is *cursed*! Not a magical one, but a curse all the same. They are cursed by their actions, their arrogance and their beliefs. They do nothing but harm to the world they live in, and I'll gladly dance on their graves! That line needs to END! Fortunately we're girls, we can marry out, get another adoption into another family, or whatever. But the book needs to close on the Malfoy line. And if I can do something to help that happen..."

She bent close, invading a frightened Ann's personal space to stare intently at her nose to nose. "I. Will. Do. It!"

Picking up her bookbag, Tina left in a huff, saying over her shoulder, "So don't ask me to help that bastard. The only reason I don't strangle him is the elves would stop me, and I'd be caught, brought before his parents, judged and executed. And I can't kill *them* for the same reasons. We may have been excellent students, but the Malfoys have been placing spells and protections over that house for eons, and were very concerned about line theft, a non-inheritor killing an heir or the Head or Matron. I can't even begin to circumvent them all."

"And that's the only reason they're alive," floated in the door Tina had vacated.

Ann and Jane stared at each other in shock.

"The scary thing," Jane mentioned. "Is that that's *us*, with just a bit of exposure to the Malfoys. We all held the same memories, personalities and attitudes a week ago."

Ann cringed, biting her lower lip. "Ok, I guess maybe they don't deserve our help."

"Finally!" Tina, who hadn't quite left yet, came cheerfully back through the door, tossed her bag down, and said, "Now maybe we can stay focused on helping those who actually deserve it. Ok, now who wants to see the latest copies of their books?"

"Actually, I was hoping for your help answering this," Ann held up the letter. "It seems the Potters are asking us for advice again."

OoOoO

"Alright! The return letter is ready, all except for a signature."

"What shall we sign it? 'A Concerned Friend' again?"

"That could lead to trouble if they try to address the return envelope 'to a concerned friend'. It might go to anyone."

"Well, we don't want to use our real names. How about we call ourselves The Norns?"

"No, that gives away that there are three of us, and we are female. Too much information. How about Europa? It's nice and vague."

"I think I prefer Cassiopeia, which means 'she whose words excel'."

"I've got it. We'll use the pen name Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, also famous as a helper of heroes, which is what we are doing!"

OoOoO

The Order of the Phoenix had been reborn, thus truly becoming the Order of the Phoenix. It had gone down in flames, then been reborn from its own ashes.

After the initial shock of betrayal was over, all of the members had realized one thing - that while they knew there were certain members they could not count on, or they could count on to betray them, from that same meeting they had learned here were others they could really trust to stay on their side and be reliable in this war. And it did not take the good ones long to conclude that standing on their own was not the best option. So they began to seek out the ones they could rely on to form mutual defense pacts.

From that, the Order had been reborn, better and stronger than ever.

Of course, it naturally left out all of the bad sorts. So Dumbledore found himself expelled from what was formerly his own Order, no longer included in the new version of it which had no use for him, or the questionable sorts he'd once welcomed into it.

Dumbledore also found that those families who had once given generously to support his cause had other uses for their money.

Much better uses.

Knowing they had been actively betrayed by several sources, the new Order members spent some time and money establishing defenses to protect their lives and families, and that mysterious letter got copied many times and handed around. However implementing those measures required money.

So now his formerly most generous supporters wouldn't even part with a bent knut for the Headmaster's pursuit of the pureblood agenda. They were too busy saving the lives of their families that he had so cavalierly put in danger by exposing their identities to spies.

The benefit of running a secret organization was supposedly the enemy didn't know who you were, so could not target you directly. In fact that was the prime advantage of that sort of organization, and the Headmaster had pissed it away without so much as a 'by your leave'. He didn't even have the decency to warn them it had happened.

No, he'd lost a lot of friends with his treatment of them, in that and other betrayals.

With the hopes of the new Order centered around the as yet unborn Harry, his parents naturally became his defacto regents, and somehow inherited control of the organization. Since Lily was at the most difficult stage of pregnancy, as far as moving herself about was concerned, more and more things fell to the control of the energetic James.

That was a good thing, as there was a great deal to be done, and he had the drive and enthusiasm to do it. It was actually an excellent thing, in that they could assume, due to all of the multiple spies that used to hang out in the former Order, that any way they'd once used to do things their enemy was fully cognizant and aware of. So everything about the Order, the way they operated and protected themselves, had to be changed if they were going to have any security. And, frankly, there wasn't a better man for the job than James Potter, the Master Marauder, one of the most innovative and creative men to pass through Hogwarts in an age. And better still, he'd used all that creativity as a troublemaker.

All that experience dodging teachers, coordinating pranks, evading the rules and not getting caught or punished for them led him to be perhaps the best leader the small force could have had, because while the stakes were higher, that was exactly what they needed here. There simply was no better leader for them when you considered that he was supported in this by his companions and friends: Sirius and Remus, all experts at evading authority, and so had an experienced command team who'd never once botched an operation. Those three together were one of the most devious and creative forces in the British Isles, used to pulling off hostile operations against hostile Slytherins. And as a group, they egged each other on, reinforced and supported each other, finding and throwing out bad ideas, refined, enhanced and reinforced good ideas, so they were more effective together than apart.

That was vital, as everyone had the occasional bad ideas. And Moldyshorts, for example, when he had them, no one was going to brave the torture to point that out.

The Marauders had a uniquely potent situation for improvement, and then they got an injection of rocket fuel in the form of a letter.

Thus linking three good minds with three more, although with different emphasis. James and his pals were endlessly creative, but while Hermione was certainly smart enough to be creative if she chose, she liked things to be orderly. So while she could be a whirlwind of creative energy at the start of a project, by the time she was finished she wanted it all to be in neat little rows. Even ideas had to be classified and sorted according to type.

This was excellent for her conceptualization and retention, but it meant she did have a habit of fighting against things that disturbed her neatly ordered stacks. Or, in other words, once she'd made her mind up she rarely changed it.

Of course, Harry's death the first time had set off a bomb in among her rigidly ordered ideas. Until then authority was always right. But the Headmaster had been so obviously wrong, and the stakes so dire, that she could never go back to the way it was.

So, she had begun the long struggle to reinvent herself. However the girl was brilliant, full of cleverness and quick to understand, and had information about this situation no one else did. Jane had also spent an inordinate amount of time considering this problem from all angles.

In some ways that was better than creativity. The Marauders already had creativity covered. The addition of some thoroughly thought over, brilliant ideas, was a helpful angle.

"Listen to this," James plopped down into a handy seat, reading aloud the latest missive from their mysterious benefactor. "Dear James, so glad you followed my advice about the testing for traitors. I'm sorry things were so bad, but glad you put a stop to things getting worse. So now I understand you are asking for advice about how to win the war. The way I see it you have the standard three needs of any military organization. You need security for your members. You need supplies so you can continue operations, and you need a way to deliver hurt to your enemy.

"Let's deal with first things first, shall we? Fidelius is probably your strongest option for quickly creating places of security, so long as you realize it is far from perfect. I'd definitely put it over all of your houses, to start with.

"For a second step, what I'd suggest is you either recruit a trunk-maker or have some of your current members learn the trade, as this will require a lot of space-expansion charms. Go and rent yourself dozens of muggle post office boxes, place them under Fidelius, and expand the space inside to make it large enough to use as an apartment. Then put a trunk inside, also under Fidelius, also with an expanded interior large enough to live in, and use a different Secret Keeper for the trunk than you do for the post office box. That way no one person has the power to give away both secrets.

"I almost regret to say it, but you'll want to select a group of people loyal to you whom you trust to no longer participate in the fighting. You need a class of people to hold your secrets that you can't risk falling into the hands of the enemy. That means a great deal of boredom staying safe, because their security is the linchpin to everyone else having safehouses. But to avoid them going crazy from inactivity or cabin fever, I'd suggest you get them to learn how to fill some of your support roles, like Healers, wand or trunk makers, and so on. A few people turning out regular supplies of potions, or growing magical herbs, would also be a priceless service in support of the ones on the fighting line.

"But despite these precautions you'll still have to prepare for just in case the Fidelius is ever breached in any way. No defense or charm is ever perfect. Nor should you expect them to be. For your next step I have two words: Defensive Architecture. You know those stone lions muggles have sitting outside the steps of libraries and other such structures? They make some of those pouring concrete into molds. Since you aren't after aesthetic appeal here you aren't after the expensive carved variety, so go to a muggle concrete factory, conjure up sixty or so molds, fill them up and let the wet concrete set into lions. Then vanish the molds and animate your new statues as defensive guardians.

"Even if by themselves they pose no serious threat to the enemy, they will distract and delay him, and will make noise and warn you.

"Or to get even better use out of this, instead of lions, make chimera. They'd still have all of the teeth and claws of a lion, but two extra heads (you can make both of them dragons, no need for the traditional goat as the third head) fitted out with muggle flamethrowers mounted internally. They can use their wings to block spells or bash Death Eaters, and the scorpion tail with stinger is yet one more thing for a dark wizard to look out for. Fighting two or more pairs of these ought to keep even the strongest dark wizard busy for a while.

"But we don't want them busy, we want them dead. So get the floor, walls, ceiling and potted plants to all attack at the same time as the sculpture. There is a limit as to what even the most powerful wizard can deal with at once, and if you are throwing spells at his face while the statuary attacks the body, the ceiling is dropping blocks on his head and your floor tiles chew on his ankles, one thing I can guarantee is he won't be happy. You won't have his full attention in that duel, and so you will have the advantage even over stronger wizards. And it doesn't just have to be sculptures. It can be your doormat. It can be the electrical wires in your walls. Say he approaches and pushes your doorbell, and that signals he is an enemy because your friends know not to do that. The cables could shock him and lunge out like the snakes they are to tie him up and attack his nuts. And you know those twin posts most porches have, there to hold up the roof? Those need not be posts, those could be the arms of the monster that is the roof. And if all that is set up as a distraction so he doesn't notice the invisible poison gas flooding into the chamber, so much the better."

Here the Marauders all paused in the letter to whistle their appreciation.

Sirius was now seriously interested, leaning forward eagerly to proclaim, "You know, so long as you put up a bubble head charm before you go to fight, how would your enemy even notice? What wizard checks their foes for bubble head charms during a battle? At least the first couple of times."

James' only answer was to smile and continue to read.

"Or if you know Death Eaters are going to be making an attack on an area, flood the floor around where they have to appear with a couple inches of water and run some muggle power lines to the pool. Then watch them dance as ten thousand volts or so run through the Death Eaters when they arrive. Let them try to dispel that! Most purebloods could never even figure out how you did it. They'd probably imagine you had some terrible new spell.

"Do not disabuse them of that notion. Let some of that fear they're so proud of work against them for once. And it's easy to fear the unknown, especially it that unknown wipes out a strike force or two and they have no clue how it works or how to defend against it."

Even Lily had to chuckle at that statement, picturing the Death Eaters afraid and on the defensive was surprisingly cathartic.

"You could even spice up the occasion with some special effects, like dry ice to make ground fog, spooky sound effects out of hidden speakers, and the like. And something like that is too good to waste on simple defense. See the attached list of Death Eaters, and feel free to strike at them in their houses. Turn about is fair play, after all, and they only get the success rate they do by attacking carefully selected targets in large groups. Let them see how they like to be on the receiving end of raids in the dead of night, for a change. And if you are less than sure that any of these are Death Eaters, check them by any means you care to. But do realize that most of the damage in this war is not personally due to Voldy, it is mostly caused by his followers, and if you can pare them down a bit your son should have an easier time taking on the big bad himself, and you'll have an easier time waiting.

"Oh, and I hope this doesn't even need to be said, but they set the rules, and it is kill or be killed. So don't stun your foes, or incarcerate them. It's time for all deadly hexes, people. You capture one of these sorts and he'll be out of prison on bail before you get home from the raid, and their lawyers will say they were wrongly accused, and so on.

"So, let them receive the same treatment they give to others, anonymous unexplained deaths in the middle of the night. Nobody claims credit. Bodies just appear. Right now they are having a blast doing that to others, but they're liable to like the game a mite less when they are on the receiving end.

"And before we leave the subject of safehouses, you'll want a few mobile ones, and aside from mailing around the trunks you live in enclosed in envelopes the muggle postmen can see, there is one other good way that should not be neglected: ships. The muggles have the largest ones, and the largest muggle ones are their aircraft carriers. But they track those too carefully. There is, however, a very large class of ship no one pays all that much attention to anymore. The Americans are the last nation with any battleships, and most of those are on inactive reserve just now. So if you put one of those under Fidelius and cast a large number of Confundus charms, you could probably just sail away. Heck, I hear rumors they are all due to be going under extensive refits soon. Since government projects are easily ninety percent waste, you could charm the right bureaucrats to not steal as much to line their pockets, and they could *build* you a few new ships of that class and still come in under budget. With dock crews confounded they'd never know the difference - and there is a great deal to be said for a safehouse that can deliver hypersonic tons of high explosive at ranges (depending on the shell used) of up to fifty miles, leaving craters forty feet across."

At this all present paused to goggle at the concept.

"Oh, and as far as offense is concerned, I have one word for you: grenades. You can pop on over to any number of third world arms dealers and pick them up by the truckload, and it will, if nothing else, weed out those Death Eaters who aren't all they should be as far as shielding charms. They also make for nifty trap devices, and no one can stay shielded all of the time. Dip them in a bit of silver nitrate that you then freeze to the outside (the part that becomes the fragments of shrapnel flying about), and drop them from brooms, then say goodbye to those pesky werewolves serving the dark tosser as well!

"You might even try having them blessed and scratching crosses on the outside, just to see what they do to vampires. Some things you never know until you try. Just like you don't really know what an anti-tank rocket would do to a giant until you see for yourself. The enemy is surprisingly weak on the muggle side of things, and where he is weak you can be strong. The beauty of these systems is they can be used quite effectively by non-experts. No one wants your children in a fight, but especially not inadequately or incompletely taught students against expert killers. However, prepared with just a little bit of training, should it arise that during an ambush or home invasion or whatever they find themselves in that situation, they could see what they could do with a few well placed nine millimeter rounds, or even a few dozen poorly placed ones. The enemy is still killing kids. Better they go out shooting if they're going to go out, and they just may surprise the enemy."

"Alright, now I'm starting to get scared." Remus was not joking, he'd actually gone white.

"Oh, hush," Lily admonished. "No one here is going to use this kind of thing against you. We're listening to how we might make this war turn in our favor, and the ideas are excellent. Now be quiet."

James resumed reading aloud, "That's offense and defense, now for supply. In the very first place, loot the bodies of your enemies, as the very types of things they'll be using against you, magic devices, invisibility cloaks, spare wands and dragonhide armor, are exactly the sort of thing you'll want most desperately for carrying the fight back to them, and whatever spare galleons they're carrying could help as well. Just be sure to check it all for hidden tricks or tracking spells. Either that, or get rid of it so fast those don't matter. But if you blast the bodies into small enough fragments their friends may never even realize they're being robbed, so won't bother to take special precautions against it.

"Also, might I suggest you try specifically targeting Moldyfart's most wealthy followers, to start? Cutting off his support is as important as securing your own, and those are the ones who supply all of his funding. So kill them. And on that line of thinking, see here the enclosed note containing a written invitation to visit and possibly raid the Malfoy Manor, signed by one of that family. Make good use of your opportunity."

James goggled at the attached paper.

"What is it, James?" his wife asked.

He presented the invitation for her viewing. "It's signed by a paw print."

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

Well, the new treatment seems to be working, so cancer's in remission again, and sorry, but it's so much fun watching the tumors visibly shrinking that it's just got to be celebrated. So here you go, a new chapter of this story.

Chuckle.

People seemed unsure of my stance on the Malfoys. I hope this clears that up. If you want them redeemed, then there are thousands of stories out there for you. But if you want them ground into dust, persecuted, humiliated and made fun of then this fic's for you.

I trust we aren't ambiguous on that anymore? 


	6. Chapter 6

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Six

by Skysaber

OoOoO

After their previous adventures going back to get their muggle records was almost a non-issue, so dull as to be boring. Three girls showed up (all Hermione at age twelve or so) accompanied by their 'mother' (another Hermione, this time a clone who had taken much more aging potion, so was approximately thirty), and practically did all of the work themselves.

The Department of Muggle Relations had certain boiler plate patterns for developing muggle identities, and what they produced was flat and uninteresting. But still they took weeks to do it, as they puzzled over which of their standard patterns to use.

Hermione cut through that by having and knowing exactly what she wanted, and no sooner did she realize that the purebloods in charge of the department had absolutely no idea what they were doing (which took approximately ten seconds, just after the first one asked if she wanted to be Chinese with the name Barney Rubble), she confounded them to let her work directly with the muggleborn employees who actually got all the work done.

Hermione had already decided that Confundus was her single most useful spell ever.

Anyway, working directly with the muggleborns in the department, and her records in hand just waiting to be copied to the stacks of official documents in the department archives (all on the right paper and of the right ink, pressed by the same plates as the muggle government used, so they could not be detected as forgeries. Clearly *somebody* in that department had been thinking clearly, or at least one of the purebloods gave an order to 'do it right' then let the muggleborns figure out how to make authentic documents), it had all been over in twenty minutes, or at least the office side of things. The department even had their own pensieve for viewing memories they had to add to people.

Apparently it was ridiculously easy to fake memories. You just daydream up something, extract and watch it as if it were a memory, then with practice refine that. And, well, Hermione hadn't had to imagine up a thing. She'd just recalled her actual memories of interacting with teachers and so on, then had the muggle relations workers go implant those. Considering that she knew all of the people she'd interacted with, and thus whose memories needed changes, and to what degree, the department had never had a simpler job. The only quirk was to have three of her in those memories, but considering what material the overworked department employees usually had to make do with, that was simple as pie.

So now the Granger triplets had what were as near as anyone could tell completely authentic muggle backgrounds up until the day they'd left muggle education to start Hogwarts. And that included Hermione Tina Granger's background from birth to her current age, seeming every bit as authentic as her sisters. The department even added her to all of the photos as they went about adding extra bed and bathrooms to the Granger home, giving each of the girls her own room, suitably decorated of course.

Seeing as how Hermione's parents had been in their early thirties when they'd had her, it made no notice at all for them to suddenly have what were legally twelve year old triplets. People's memories of them were just backtracked to include them having their first kids at school instead of after successfully settling down at their practice.

The girls had agonized about it a bit, but seeing the excellent quality of the work done by the department's muggleborn employees, in the end had decided that it was better for all involved to give their parents the memories of their children growing up to twelve, along with all of those vacations and things together, including celebrating their wonderful grades. So twelve years of moderately happy childhoods, complete with pictures and mementos around the house, this time for three girls, had gotten crammed into their minds and home.

They added a whole new shelf to the Grange library, this one filled to capacity with photo albums holding a vast variety of pictures capturing life and vacations. They had elected not to include some bad memories, such as a real blow up between their parents about one (not their dad actually, but their mom) wanting to go on a nude beach in France, that had simmered all summer and pretty much ruined that year's vacation. And they'd also decided that it was okay to include some things they had not gone on, such as the trips through the American Gold Country they'd always planned to do, but never gotten around to.

The mementos of this new past filled every shelf and closet, and they had an awesome collection of Christmas ornamentation.

They all had several different cowgirl outfits (except for daddy Granger, who had cowboy stuff to wear), Viking paraphernalia from a trip to Sweden they'd never actually taken in the original timeline because the family had gotten too sick to vacation that year, and outfits and art and photos of them all together around the world filled the household.

One of Ann's favorites was a wide angle picture with all of them in a row, each wearing an "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt and an arrow pointing from one girl to another on up to dad, also wearing the same T-shirt so it pointed at the Donald Duck he was standing next to with one arm around the costumed park worker so the whole line of stupids pointed to him.

Jane's favorite was a photo of all of the Granger girls wearing shirts proclaiming them, "99% Angel - nobody's perfect," and other, similar shots of them wearing things like it, like the full lineup of Granger girls in, "Cutest Girl in the World" shirts.

You wouldn't think it of Jane, but she treasured the mementos of happy times, knowing the darkness of all that had gone on ahead of them in the timeline.

Tina laughed until she cried over the photo of Ann, at her actual non-potion age, wearing an "I'm too sexy for my diaper" shirt.

Even friends of the family had gotten included in the new memories. Everyone now thought the Grangers simply had an eleven year gap between their first set of triplets, and having their younger brother.

It was all authentic, in a way, just premature.

Or so it would have been, save for the fact that, after fulfilling all of the Hermiones' plans, one of the workers, the team lead actually (a halfblood, child of halfbloods, all raised in magical households. "Why does it seem so predictable that in the wizarding world it's always the most ignorant person in charge?" Tina whispered discretely aside to Ann. They would have confounded the man, save for the fact that he'd spent the entire time lounging around in the back giving orders that his employees wisely ignored) blurted, "That's it? You know we get a budget for this sort of thing. You three get three times the regular amount on account o' there's three of ya, and you 'aven't even spent any of it yet."

"Really?" One of the Hermiones returned. "What about all of the pictures and things?"

"Them what's all come under the 'deescretiation-airy funds', ain't none of it what comes out of your account. C'mon, there's gotta be something more for us to do? Oh, and before I forget," the man reached under his dinner jacket and evening gown combination to produce what looked like three small cellophane bags of different colored hard candies, each tied with its own ribbon. "'Ere ya go, three muggle acclimation kits."

Knowing better than to assume they were just hard candies, all of the girls crowded around. "What does it do?" Hermione Jane asked, as they accepted those presented.

"Oh, simple!" the man declared. "These here are to prepare yous for muggle life. This one ere, ya take it an you gots yer muggle edi-ka-shun up ta whens ya would ha been starten 'Ogwarts, Geographical stuff and the like. This one over ere give ya the vital ability ta cook and prepare reindeer and walrus from when you muggle types is followin the herds come winter. An this one teaches ya how ta play those vital muggle instruments o' accordion and alpenhorn, while this last one lets ya know 'ow ta eedentify muggle plants an whotnot. It's terribly useful, the lot 'o 'em! Ya take these, an ya can pass fer a muggle anywhere ya like! Why, I took 'em myself an not one o' them muggles looks twice at me!"

The man posed proudly in his white dinner jacket, sequined purple evening gown, and a handbag made from the stuffed head of a pig. A live duck had been tied by its feet to his belt, and the fact that his feet were wrapped in torn plastic bags completed the ensemble.

~No, I'm sure either they couldn't stop staring, or they didn't want to meet your eyes for fear you'd approach,~ the girls all thought together. Tina now held her bag at arm's length and scowled at it, thinking if this man got his education from this thing she wanted no part in it.

But it was Jane who asked the vital question. "Do you mean you can teach skills just by eating candies?" Her eyes shone, because if true that opened up vast possibilities.

"Nah! Just these." The guy waved a hand dismissively. "They're all based on language lozenges, candies ya can suck on ta learn how ta speak Chinese-like. They've been around fer hundreds o years, but these 'er new. Some guy whot learned 'ow ta make new forms 'o them lozenge thingies came up wit 'em fifty years er so ago. E's the only one whot's done it even since the language lozenges wuz invented, ya see? Anyhow he came up wit these thinking ta make adaptation ta muggle life easier, an we been usin 'em ever since."

"So is this guy still around?" Tina pounced on the concept.

Again more dismissive hand waving. "Nah! He died near fifty years ago, back during Grindelwald's reign. Shame it is. There are still a few bumps he coulda helped us smooth over in the whole muggle relations business."

The live duck that had been tied to his belt flapped its wings in another attempt to escape.

Ann and Tina met gazes, thinking together as clearly as words, ~Why is it that everything of worth in the wizarding world is old, and was outdated to start with?~

Jane was still pouncing on this concept. "How often do you have to take these to keep the skills? Are there any others, like from a deluxe set?"

The man scratched the side of his neck. "Don't worry about them runnin out. Taken 'em once, lasts forever. As fer others? Weeell, we gots one or two more 'o dem, but we don't use 'em often, see? Cause there ain't much cause ta use em in de muggle world."

"What are they?" All three girls pounced.

"Well there's skiing, but last I 'eard muggles don't do that no more since they got roads, an ice skatin, that used ta be a good one for pairing up with the walrus huntin one, only they do all that now from them helly-coppers, I hear tell. We got this here unlabeled cooking one, but no one I knows taken that one, so I don't know what dish it does. Then we 'ave bowling ball stacking, but again you'll be too busy hunting walrus ta worry about that. Then we gots lapidary, whatever that is, but that's all!"

"We'll take them all!" Jane blurted out, eagerly supported by nodding from the rest, even Tina. Hermione had always wanted to ice skate, but had been terrible at sport.

"Alright," the man signed a form and sent off a laborer for the extra candies, shaking his head as if they were not right in the head. "Don't take more an one a week or they mix wit odd effects. But ya still gotta give me boys something ta spend the money on, otherwise the boss-types will suspect we've nipped off wit it."

"So what kind of things can we ask for?" Ann inquired on behalf of herself and her sisters.

The halfblood team lead started quoting, "All squibs what get sent off ta de muggle world can expect o' the Ministry o' Magic a complete muggle background, one home wit suitable decorations and furnishings, one vehicle and one job wit gainful repudiations, like."

Ann couldn't tolerate the accent any more. "Don't you mean 'remuneration?'"

"Yeah, that."

She gestured to the Granger family home around them. "But doesn't this count?"

The man shook his head. "Nah, this is like extra. Ya got muggle relations here anyway, so dey don't count, right?"

Jane lunged ahead to grab Ann and put her hand over her mouth, smiling brightly to the team lead. "No, of course they don't. Say, for my job do you think I could be a hotel owner? There's a nice one by the airport called The Hilton."

And so that was how the Granger family acquired the corner lot next to their home (currently empty) on which the Granger domicile got greatly expanded, the garden done and the house 'suitably decorated' (under the excuse their dad was a rock-hound) with scads of geodes, agates and citrines, malachite, amethyst, onyx and jade, both freestanding natural forms and ones carved into useful appointments and furnishings.

They even had fossils, including one rather big one, a triceritops skull mounted over the fireplace, along with a picture of their dad with a hunting rifle with a smoking barrel, standing wearing hunting gear with one foot on the head of a dead triceritops.

That was something of a private Granger joke, but the Ministry workers did it.

In and among the marble floors and rose quartz columns (yes, they got a little ridiculous), they also included nice carved wood furniture for their mom, because they *did* have a little brother, and another sibling on the way, so some areas of the house had to be baby-proofed, and the other areas had to be able to be sealed off so little hands didn't break hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rock collection.

Worth. No telling how the Ministry got it, as they obviously didn't value it at anywhere close to its muggle market price. But Hermione simply knew what to ask for, and the halfblood in charge of the group doing the work didn't know when to say 'no'. So they got a great deal more out of their starting setup than the Ministry perhaps intended, but the regulations had been set to prevent those being thrust out of the magical world from having too much magic around their newly muggle households, so the restrictions were on magical belongings, not on having a country residence with a private plane, a vacation cabin up in Scotland, or a Rolls Royce sedan in the driveway and a nice private yacht in a nearby marina.

For the vehicles the Muggle Relations crew whet to pick up a newly wrecked vehicle of the type requested, then restored it using magic - something all the Hermiones resolved to learn how to do.

About the only mistake that was made was none of the girls had properly explained they had a live-in nanny, so the Ministry workers wrote her into everything as their older sister. So now the Grangers had a bit of a scandalous past, as far as anyone knew, since Clara, the eldest at eighteen, must have been born when their mother was sixteen.

A nasty mistake to make, to put a blotch such as that on an innocent couple's reputations, but not one worth calling the Ministry back in, as who knew what kind of gross errors they'd produce trying to undo this one?

It frankly wasn't worth the risk.

And at the end of it all, Hermione hadn't had to Obliviate anyone after all. Well, except for the Ministry employees, because she didn't dare let the purebloods know who and what she was. And anything the Ministry knew, the purebloods could find out.

Then, sooner than you'd think, it was time to get ready to start school. Once again, for Ann this was almost a non-issue. They'd gone to Cheltenham Ladies College before, and it was a known set of hurdles to face.

Jane, on the other hand, had an entirely different set of problems.

"Have you got everything?"

"Yes," Jane replied, both tired and reassured by her sisters' nagging.

"Do you have your wand?"

"Which one?"

"Both of them, silly."

"Yes."

The triplets had made a trip to Diagon Alley earlier, using the same pattern of three girls (at eleven this time) and one clone acting as mother at thirty.

Having permission from their nanny (even though she didn't know she'd given it) to leave the Malfoy estate, they didn't need to leave all of their clones there all of the time. They did so most of the time to allay suspicions, but could draw them out for projects such as this.

Anyway, they did a full day of Hogwarts shopping just to cover their tracks so Ollivander did not get suspicious over if they were old enough to have wands or not. Three more little girls with their mother, all laden with packages of robes, cauldrons and Hogwarts texts just blended in to the pre-school shopping season.

Jane had watched for an opportunity and skipped in first, a full three minutes ahead of her sisters, so had gotten their original vine wood with dragon heartstring wand for herself. However, the same wand suited them all so perfectly that Ollivander had eventually smiled and excused himself, asking them to come back in an hour, and by that time (which they had used to purchase all other six years of Hogwarts texts, along with a vast supply of potion ingredients) had produced two identical copies of the original wand - better than sister wands, as they not only shared cores from the same dragon, but vine wood off of the same tree.

After leaving, the three girls had then delicately placed their vine wood wands in boxes and packed them at the bottom of their trunks, where they would stay for the next seven years, waiting for the Ministry tracking charms placed on sale to wear off.

Then Tina had taken them all back to the Malfoy mansion, where she'd discovered the cupboard where all the wands of former family members had been stored over the ages, and they had a go looking through those.

The Malfoy wands did not suit them as well, and there was still a fear of drawing squads of Ministry officials if they used them away from the heavily warded Malfoy home as they did not really know how the Ministry tracked that sort of thing, but it was good to have a wand not tied directly to them in cases of emergency, just in case, for when they had to cast something they had not yet mastered wandlessly.

Besides, wanded spells felt more powerful, more focused, and longer ranged.

"Got your armor on?" Ann continued the interrogation, obviously concerned.

"Yes," Jane agreed, listing it off, "Ankle to throat to wrist tights of acromantula silk. Where did we get acromantula silk, anyway? It's not sold in any stores. They eat any wizards who try and collect the stuff."

"I've got some glass spiders I transfigured in the Forbidden Forest collecting gobs of it," Tina returned the answer gladly, unintentionally reminding the other two that in a pureblood household any amount of wand magic was ignored by the underage restriction monitors, and the dark family had retained many spare wands left over by past Malfoys.

"How much?"

"Only about a hundred and twenty two thousand miles of it, at last count." Tina mentioned offhandedly. "That place has a stupidly large number of giant spiders, and they all spin webs. So we haven't even really had to disturb them to collect the unused ones."

"Oh." Both Tina's sisters blinked. "Well, that has to be useful."

"It is, now on to your armor count. Have you got your teddy on?"

"Yes," Jane replied, testing the feel of it by rubbing her arms against her sides. "And I won't ask you who you had to kill to get armor quality dragonhide in this country." The war meant demand for that material was simply unbelievable.

"I didn't have to kill anyone, the Malfoys have a stock of it in their basement," Tina helped straighten up Jane's collar on her shirt. It had to look normal over two levels of armor. Both the lighter silk and heavier dragon leather had been laden with so many impervious charms and protective enchantments she might as well have been wearing a full Nuclear, Biological and Chemical survival suit on under a set of Turkish plate mail, except all together it was about as encumbering as a gymnast's leotard, and easily hidden under her uniform.

It had cost a fortune, but they had a couple fortunes, and they did not want to risk Jane's life.

Tina frankly had an eye on acquiring a matching set for herself, as even if it had no other benefit it would still help her feel safer around the Malfoy household, and somebody had to keep their clones moving and active. She'd found the tracer spells they'd use to locate lost infants, and hadn't figured out any good or reliable counters for them yet.

"Boots?"

"Yes."

"Gloves?"

"Yes."

"That's two more layers of silk and dragonhide. Now the only thing unprotected is your head and neck." Ann carefully examined her sister's outfit, making sure she was presentable.

"Can't be helped," Jane sighed, wishing she had those covered as well. "Wearing a helmet would draw more attention than the protection would be worth, I'm sure."

"We'll have to develop some magical makeup for face armor. It won't be much protection, I'm sure, but even a little bit could help substantially in the right circumstances," Ann mused thoughtfully, adding the project to her pile. "And we are in the makeup business, after all."

Tina offered another measure of protection, however, presenting her sister a potion.

"What's this?" Jane wrinkled her nose at the bubbling multicolor concoction.

Tina's smile never faltered. "It's a venom immunization potion, fifth year difficulty but fairly obscure, so it's not taught at Hogwarts or anywhere else I'm aware of. The only people who use it in the magical world are Magical Beast Handlers. Well, the ones in venomous specialties, anyway."

"So what's it do?" Ann poked over her shoulder to look.

Tina shrugged, then began to lecture, "Exactly what it says, provides immunity to a specific toxin or venom. You have to have a sample of the poison you want to become immune to to charge it with, a bit like polyjuice in that. Now there are two versions, a regular one that lasts about a month, only nobody uses that one anymore because it's been available as an everlasting elixir for simply ages."

Jane accepted the concoction dubiously. "Alright, what am I becoming immune to?"

Once again Tina shrugged. "Oh, the usual spread to start with, they have a fairly generic blend they give to all of the Magical Beast Handlers in their apprenticeship. But to that I've added alcohol, tobacco, basilisk venom, and all the street drugs I could find."

"What are you doing with street drugs?" Ann boggled. "Where did you even get them?"

"You'd be surprised what pushers are willing to give young girls as free samples, and they give even more after being confounded. I've got all the main ones included, and I'll expect you to expand our protection as much as you can by getting doses of the obscure ones at St Trinian's, for us to add to our cocktail of immunity serums to make it truly comprehensive."

"Does it even work on drugs?"

"Yes. I double checked that on mom's medical textbooks, the ones she had as a med student before she switched to dentistry because it was easier. All drugs are poisons. So if it comes out of a pharmacy or off the street, we can be immune to it."

"Tobacco?"

"Nothing is more infamous about St Trinian's than the image of cigar smoking eleven year old girls. I don't want you picking up any bad habits, or lung cancer by association, and the main active ingredient, nicotine, is not only a poison but an extremely deadly one. The doses are normally so small though that it gives a buzz instead of you keeling over dead."

"But why alcohol?"

"Haven't you paid any attention to those stories of the sort of things people get young ladies drunk for? If you don't want to be taken advantage of, you'd better be grateful! You can't be on your guard all of the time, and at a place like St Trinian's I'd expect the punch to be spiked with hard liquor as a matter of course."

"Ok. I see your reasons, and agree with them."

"We'll all be taking the potion, of course."

"What?!?" Ann's hair stood on end.

"I need this. Purebloods are every bit as prone to getting girls drunk and taking advantage of them as any common lowborn thug. Alcohol tolerance is as important as breeding among some of their circles, and I'm certainly not going to spend half of each day drunk as a lord getting it the normal way. I have books to read. Besides: Princess Bride, Iocane powder."

"Oh? Oh!" Ann got it. The reference was to one of their favorite movies, where the hero pirate outwits the nasty kidnapper, and the key advantage was the bad guy didn't know the good guy was immune to the poison.

Now that it was pointed out, that was the sort of advantage they could use, especially if the immunity potion was obscure, so most people wouldn't know of it to be on guard against someone who'd made use of it. But it was, like so many measures, something you had to prepare ahead of time or it would be useless.

And Ann wasn't fond of the idea of being taken advantage of while drunk, either. That was something Ron had tried on more than one occasion. But thankfully always failed due to the fact that he couldn't resist drinking himself, and did so in large quantities, just like he ate anything, and would always start talking when he got in his cups, so slurred out his plans.

Seeing him was proof in the pudding that drunkenness was not a privilege, it was a weakness. But Tina was already off and talking again.

"Now at a place like St Trinians I'd expect them to have drugs we haven't prepared you for. So assuming that to be the case, I asked around the house elves, and they eventually got around to pointing me in the right direction. It turns out the wizarding world has a wide variety of hangover cures and sobriety charms - the purebloods drink like fish, go figure. Anyway, some of the more powerful ones work on more toxins than you'd think, and the real upper echelon spells are effective against anything that might give a high, so if you need to regain your wits from something, these will do it. Here, I've copied them all down on this sheet, cross-referenced for ease of use. You'll want to be able to cast them stoned out of your gourd, just in case, so well, err, work until you can cast them in your sleep."

"If these work so well why are we taking the trouble with the immunity potion?"

"Because the hangover cures only relieve the effects of a drug or poison. They won't stop it from doing damage, only eliminate the symptoms they have, like dizziness, hallucinations, nausea, pain, and the like. There are outright medical cures that can purge your system of foreign compounds, but those take a while, are miserable, and aren't at all subtle: shivering fits, fever, chills, technicolor sweat, and so on. However if you need to detox or break an addiction, or whatever, well, we'll have practiced the spells until we're ready to help you."

"Thanks, I'll practice them myself, just in case."

"You won't need to use them on us, that I can guarantee you."

"Do try and stay clean, won't you?" Ann pleaded.

"I promise I'll try." Jane replied dryly, rolling her eyes. Did her sister really think she wanted to mess herself up so badly she might not ever get her mind right again? Sheesh! They could remove the chemicals. The mental effects? She wasn't so sure, and was going to be watching everything like a hawk! And that was already considering eating breakfast and dinner at home, and taking lunch in a magically protected pail!

"Uh, Tina? Where did you get basilisk venom?" the reassured Ann inquired.

"Oh? That. I'm raising one as a project on the Malfoy estate. The paintings think it's simply marvelous that I'm following the family pattern and all that."

"Ugh, sorry I asked."

"Yes, but you did. So you deserved your answer."

"Where did you learn how to raise a basilisk?" Jane wanted to know.

"In the same book that had the recipe for the venom immunity potion, of course." Tina returned smoothly. "It only taught the potion as a needed precaution for the snake's care."

"What about you, Tina?" Ann asked, noting her sister's lack of a uniform and wondering about it. "Are you coming to Cheltenham Ladies College with me? I know there had to be a reason you wanted your records produced as well."

"Actually, no. I'm going to the United States to prepare a fallback position in case we can no longer stay in the UK. I found a nice Christian private secondary school in California, and I thought I'd like a chance to bask in the sun while you two are freezing your bits off up here."

"That's cruel," Ann and Jane both scowled.

Tina tossed them a smile. "Oh well. Besides, I felt I'd earned it, keeping the Malfoys off our collective backs for two weeks. That alone was equal to the stress of two years of Potions under Snape. So I deserve a reward."

Now Jane was concerned, and voiced it, "What is going to keep them off our backs during the school year?"

Tina slipped into scholar mode, and began to explain, "It's very simple. They still think we are just under a year old, which is not a very demanding age to be at. The behavior of our clones does not have to be all that complex at this stage, just eat, sleep and play with the puppies. The elves can take care of all the washing and dressing and so on. And so long as I stop in every so often, say every couple of weeks, it should be plenty. My compulsion charms are certainly up to having them emulate that much. Besides, I'm going to school on the west coast of America, and I'm going to have evenings free. That's ten time zones apart, so when I get out of classes in the afternoon there it's early morning here. So I can pop back in to check in on breakfast and make sure things are going well."

Both her sisters blinked. "I didn't know magical travel could go that distance."

Tina blushed, then admitted. "Well, it can't. I'm still working on that part. A big part of the draw is the distance, actually. It places us out of range of casual attacks, and the American magical society is very different from our own. That's something I was counting on to help protect us, seeing as how our worst threat, the Death Eaters, can't blend in there as they do here, and they don't have the Ministerial support to strike with impunity."

"Hmm," the preteen paused in thought. "Maybe there is some way of checking up on those spells remotely?"

Ann sighed and rolled her eyes. "Well, I suppose Jane and I could check in on occasion for you. I'll take odd weekends, Jane can have evens."

"Thank you!" Tina gave both of them a great big hug. "It shouldn't be too hard. Like I said before, the behavior of one-year olds is not demanding, and it's not like either adult Malfoy pays them any attention, and on that fact, I have an announcement to make."

Both her sisters turned to stare attentively at Hermione Tina, who preened. "I was able to cobble together enough facts from various sources in their library to enchant the wands, beds and bathrooms of Lucius and Narcissa to maintain compulsion and confundus charms on them. Then I compelled them to ignore us, even more than they already do, and made it so when they think of anything related to us girls they'll be confounded to urgently think of something else instead. I set their dark artifact collection as the default. Anyway, they always ought to be near one of those things, to maintain/reassert the beguilement."

Jane tilted her head curiously. "Why dark artifacts?"

Tina shrugged. "You can't confuse someone into not thinking of something. You have to make him think of something else instead. Our main defense is really the compulsion, the confusion is merely the backup. And I set it that way because in some ways it doesn't matter how many means they *could* use to find us if they never think to try."

Tina tossed her hair proudly. "Both of these work better as they are just reinforcing their natural inclinations. They already ignore us. Actually, while I don't intend to push it as a slip up could be disastrous, the compulsions should only grow with age. So by the time we are twenty we could hopefully strip naked and run around the house holding muggle rock concerts in the foyer, and they'd still choose to ignore us. But again, that's an ideal. I hope we never have any excuse to test if they'd really ignore us to that degree."

Ann blinked. "Anything else?"

Jane blushed. "Uh, I actually suggested one."

Tina rounded on her sister. "You mean you didn't tell Ann?"

"It just never came up," Jane squirmed helplessly, afraid to admit she'd become distracted by some of those wonderful books Tina had brought by.

"Tell me what?" Ann became curious.

Tina rolled her eyes. "It's only just one of the most brilliant moves in this war."

Jane blushed at the praise. "I got the idea from watching a WWII film on TV."

"What is it?" Ann pressed, resolved to look into this a bit.

Tina huffed, hands on hips that, at twelve, still weren't much. They were all undeveloped stick figures hoping to blossom soon. "Hitler waged genocidal war on people he didn't like, just like the purebloods. But he had prison camps. Jane's idea was that if the purebloods didn't kill people right away they could be rescued later, after Voldy's fall. So she asked and I agreed to add beguilements to the Malfoys so they think they urgently need prisoners, and to keep it secret. That way hopefully some portion of those who died in this war won't, as whenever Lucius gets the urge to kill someone, he'll prefer to capture them instead."

"What's to stop him from raping them?" Ann demanded with a scowl.

Tina giggled. "Well, I did add spells to his Dung Eater outfits to attract hostile magic to his crotch area. But that was all I could get away with on that front, and even then I had to call it a harmless prank or the elves wouldn't let me. Sorry."

"Anyway," Jane added, now rising in defense of her own idea. "I was thinking we could free any prisoners from cells under Malfoy Manor on a semi-regular basis, and confound Lucius and his wife to think they'd executed whoever was down there 'for good reasons', so they don't question why their cells continually empty."

"It's just an application of the same dodge the Dung Eaters are using," Tina explained. "You catch me, but I escape to fight again, sort of deal. We're thinking it should really hold down some of the casualties of this war, as Lucius goes on most of the raids."

Ann did some thinking about this. "I still don't like it. Their treatment of captives is brutal, and often torture can be worse than death. Look at what happened to the Longbottoms."

Jane popped up to exclaim. "How about this? Go charm him to think he is taking slaves for sale during the upcoming pureblood utopia, and to avoid any unnecessary damage as that would destroy the resale value." Seeing Ann's expression darken, she quickly amended, "Look, I know it's revolting and wrong, but what about their side isn't? At least this way that's an explanation he could take at face value and not question much. Compulsions don't work very well on subjects who are always wondering why they are doing something."

Tina popped up to her feet. "I have enough time to go do that before sending you both off to school. Then I can check it again before heading off to America."

Ann popped up herself, volunteering, "I'll go let our real parents realize that with us going off to school they'll need someone to look after little Romeo during the day."

OoOoO

James watched in satisfaction as a raiding party of Dung Eaters electrocuted to death in two inches of standing water.

The reformed Order had nabbed one of the men on that list of Death Eaters off the street of Diagon Alley earlier that day and questioned him under Veritaserum, and he'd known about this raid, giving them just enough time to truly prepare.

~Or perhaps over-prepare,~ James thought as he saw the concrete chimeras tear into the helplessly thrashing Dung Eaters. ~After all, at this rate they'll never get to the traps we put on the house.~

Still, they'd been given some absolutely brilliant concepts to work off of. And one of the best facts was the guardian statues cared not one bit about the electricity, so could attack groups of Dung Eaters while they were in the power-line-fed pools of water.

~Hmm, forget about the traps on the house, at this rate they'll be dead even before we get to flood the area with poison gas.~

Razor-edged bat wings flexed, sending two decapitated heads flying.

~Heck, at this rate the wizards waiting in ambush aren't even going to get a chance to fire off a shot!~

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

I'd just like to thank everyone for their wonderful support. and yes, having cancer sucks, but it's quite a thrill to see tumors that grew explosively just as quickly go away. I love this new treatment. 


	7. Chapter 7

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Seven

by Skysaber

OoOoO

"You know, for raising as many girls as I have, you'd think I'd know more about parenting. It's not like this is the first time I've sent a daughter off to school." Helen Granger wiped a tear out of her eye as she saw her daughters off at the train station. Richard, their dad, was presently hugging Clara tightly, a girl who days ago had been their nanny and now everyone had been made to think was the oldest daughter.

Life sure was odd when magic could be used to so profoundly affect your reality.

Heck, just the three Hermiones alone were perfect examples! They all started out the same person, but the differences just kept piling up every day, it seemed like.

Hermione Ann was probably closest to the original. She saw herself as the good one, and the check and balance of the others' excesses, even though she was a bit excessive herself about doing that. Her room at the house was crammed full of books she'd gotten the Muggle Relations department to provide, mostly reference material and scholarly works, and was sensibly painted in neutral colors.

On the flip side Hermione Jane saw herself as the strategist or soldier. She was far more focused on winning the war than anything else, as was proven by the fact that she was about to sacrifice her educational opportunities to instead acquire skills for fighting. However having considered death and combat more than the others she also had an appreciation of the joys of life and living that Ann didn't have. Her room at the Granger household was filled of course with many books, but predominated with beautiful artwork. Glass fairies hung from her ceiling, twirling around equally wonderful blown glass flowers and hummingbirds, while the ceiling itself was painted as a night sky, with little reflective stars glittering on it. Her walls (where they weren't covered in bookcases) were painted in pastoral forest scenes heavy on the flowers, birds and unicorns. Sculptures of the same stood on her desk and in corners. Even her carpet was a deep forest green with a ribbon of royal blue winding through like a river, running down her prime traffic areas with potted plants standing to either side.

Everything in there, from the potted plants to her delicate crystal faeries, were also charmed to animate and attack any intruders, barring family members and certain friends, and there were several secret places she could dive into to provide places of security against a surprise assault.

Hermione Tina, on the other hand, had departed most of all from the traditional Hermione. She still loved books and learning, but she had seen the face of evil close up over long (for her) periods, and had all sorts of comforting illusions stripped away. The others never quite knew what to think about her, or what she was thinking at any one moment.

She was also something of a hedonist. Her room at the Granger house was all plush and overstuffed furniture, soft beanbag chairs of many colors, and the thickest collection of soft pillows of any of them. Her bed was also piled deep in stuffed animals, even overflowing onto the shelves and bookcases in her room. Everything about her place was almost a cliche for cute and girly, aside from the fact that her room held just as many bookcases as any of them. The room was practically a valentine. Her walls were pink, the curtains were pink, her bedcovers were pink. They had white lace. What wasn't pink was either white, like the lace, or a bright valentine red. There were ballerinas and butterflies in poses on her closet doors and walls. She also had the largest stuffed animals of any of them, standing taller than their dad, flanking her door on either side. One was a dragon, and one was a unicorn, and both were just as capable as Jane's of animating and ripping apart intruders.

She also had the cutest garbage can any of them had ever seen, and it was programmed to leap up and bite the heads off of unsuspecting Death Eaters.

In truth, neither of her sisters knew what to think about Tina, which was an amazing thing once you considered they'd all been the same person only a few weeks ago. So if they couldn't understand her, nobody else stood any chance. They might see the surface and think 'traditional girl' but that didn't scratch away the covering to see the girl hidden below who was able, even eager, to wipe out the entire Malfoy family line.

Jane didn't take things as personally as Tina did. Jane wanted to win the war and support Harry, while Tina wanted the Death Eaters to *die*! All of them, every last one.

All three, however, were agreed on certain points, and one of them was they'd all like to have Cheltenham Ladies listed in their official educational backgrounds, as that would serve them best on providing future opportunities, having by far the best reputation. So that was where their parents believed they were sending them. So the girls all stood in a neat little row before them wearing the appropriate uniforms for Cheltenham. Ann would be tasked with seeing that her teachers were confounded to think there was three of her, and turning in all of the tests and assignments three times, but frankly the girl was looking forward to it.

The other two were less inclined to looking forward to all the work they'd have to perform to keep up with her. But she'd promised to save copies of all the tests and assignments for them to fill out later, after going over her notes of course.

It promised to be hellish for Jane and Tina. But at least Ann could correct their work from her own graded papers. So they wouldn't fall behind, it would just be a headache keeping up, basically doing the whole thing home-study/study online, while also doing other things.

They said their goodbyes and got their hugs, some with tears from their mother. Clara got the most hugs, in spite of them thinking they had the most experience sending her off to school, while the Hermiones got less. And it was an unusual sensation for her, having to share her parents' affection, even with herself. The change was a bit unsettling for her.

Then Clara bent low over the triplets, gathering them in her own hugs. "Okay, brats, I know you've had trouble making friends. Just remember big sister's advice: First impressions last a long time, so act on your first day the way you want to be treated forever." Their nanny then kissed them each and let the trio go.

Then it was time to board the train.

OoOoO

Once they were out of sight to the station where their parents had waved them farewell, Tina and Jane slipped off, leaving the Cheltenham girls to go to bathrooms in other cars, changing before they left into other uniforms.

It was with a certain amount of trepidation that Hermione Jane slipped into her new clothes. She'd certainly never anticipated being in *this* outfit! The St Trinian's colors, worn on their tie and hat, while not *quite* Slytherin's green and silver, were still remarkably similar and far too close for her not to make a connection, and even be somewhat alarmed by it.

They were a good reminder of the danger she was now in.

Mindful that one of the best ways *not* to fit in at St Trinian's was to wear the unmodified uniform, Jane left the jacket and button front shirt open, displaying the t-shirt she had on under, one with a fisherman holding a freshly caught fish, and with a big smile announcing: "You, my friend, are cordially invited to kiss my bass." The top part of the gymslip dress had been stripped away entirely, leaving it only a skirt. She also wore a pair of sneakers instead of the regulation patent leather because they were more comfortable.

All that safely in place, she slipped off. It was easy to find the train car holding the St Trinian's girls, all you had to do was follow the dull roar of all the girls shouting. On entering the car, she found her choice of uniform modifications turned out to have been conservative.

Jane had no sooner arrived than she'd immediately gotten welcomed into the "All-Blonde" club of her fellow first-formers. Kim Novak and Mary Clancy were the most blonde, being downright platinum, whereas Rachel Davies and Kate Davies ( "Twins?" "No, first cousins.") were nearest to brown, with Sandy Mackie and Hermione Jane being somewhere in the middle (for Hermione, this was entirely due to her Malfoy adoption, she felt sure, never having been at all blonde before).

There were other St Trinian's first formers on the train, but by decree of Sandy Mackie she was unable to talk to them, seeing as how they weren't blonde.

That seemed a completely ridiculous restriction to Hermione, but seeing as how she'd never got along well with people in the first place, she decided not to rock the boat so early after being accepting into her first group of muggle school-chums ever. If being blonde was the entry price, she could live with that for now.

It certainly wasn't as bad a prejudice as any of that pureblood nonsense.

Her reception actually cheered Hermione immeasurably. Right now she had her first set of semi-friendly contacts, and she could evaluate them and keep or reject them later based on circumstances and the cost for benefit value of the relationships. And there was no point in automatically rejecting them simply because they'd posed a restriction (that was a mistake she'd made too often during her first time through muggle school, and had come to bitterly regret in the loneliness of later years), a restriction which for Hermione might not actually be a restriction in any case because in the past the size of her pool of potential friends didn't matter, because whether it was large or small none of them turned out to be real friends.

And, she considered, when you're going into an environment as cutthroat as St Trinian's, having any association at all gave you an advantage. Even people who *might* back you was an edge over fellow students who had none, so everyone with any sense was trying to fit into a group somewhere, for most of the same reasons wildebeasts and so on formed herds, because predators would attack the lone animal, not the herd.

It was safer to be in a group, any group at all, than to be alone.

So, wholly on the basis of being blonde, they began to evaluate each other to find if they could fit together as a group through their school years. Hermione was unquestionably the most brilliant of them, but intentionally did not say much. She was there to observe and learn, not become a leader of hooligans.

That resolve lasted all of half an hour into the trip.

OoOoO

Hermione Ann was nose deep in a fashion magazine when they caught her.

Last time she had attended Cheltenham Ladies College her parents had sprung for the basic uniform, simple and sensible. This time she had gone for all of the frills, the hidden tweaks and extras you weren't technically supposed to have, but all of the popular kids did.

Surprisingly, the bookworm had done this purely out of practical reasons. She was writing an article on fine dress for muggles and it had been done as legitimate research, and the cost was even borne by her editor at Witch Weekly, so why not? As the one having the least workload of any of the Hermiones, she'd been elected by the others as the one to keep up their magical fashion advice business.

However, being blonde, dressed as a popular girl, hair looking nice due to some new charms she was trying out, and nose deep in a fashion magazine (for purposes of rewriting those articles for a magical audience), it was not long before the popular crowd noticed she had all of the markers they were looking for and swept her up into their membership.

Hermione Ann could not have been more surprised.

OoOoO

Hermione Tina slipped out of the train entirely, apparating clear. She had some things to file at the Ministry to help her parents before she went on to her own destination.

In this case, the magical world being several hundred years behind the muggle one worked in their favor. For example, the income tax was less than a hundred years old. The magical world worked on a series of tariffs charged on magical goods and services. So, by registering her parents new homes and properties as magical dwellings, they'd become immune to the tax burden of supporting the muggle government.

After that, she'd bury those registrations deep down so nobody in the magical government could find them, so they didn't draw the notice of Death Eaters to those properties. Then it would be off to California.

OoOoO

After twenty minutes on the train, the St. Trinian's students had transferred to four busses for the final leg of the trip and all pulled out of the train station filled with a dull roar of shouting girls, most of whom were hanging halfway out the windows and waving either hockey sticks or bottles of gin.

All of those four busses were in bad repair, having seen hard use, and more than a bit of deliberate abuse, during their stints of service. The one the blonde club dragged Hermione Jane to had looked the best but turned out to be the worst, lagging behind the others as its engine struggled and smoked.

Back long ago on this date before in her timeline, Hermione had been all of nearly one year old, so not one for reading newspapers. So she was ignorant of even the muggle side of events, including the coverage of what the Death Eaters referred to as one of their revels - basically an opportunity to hold a giant party during which they killed and tortured muggles.

Their targets for these attacks were most often girls, because revels were always more fun if you added rape to them.

Last week the target had been a cloister full of nuns. The target this week was an isolated bus full of schoolgirls, chosen without reason other than convenience. In this particular choice the Death Eater raiding party there to collect involuntary subjects for the orgy had been quite fortunate, things could have gone quite badly for them. But even the most hardened criminals could be captured or murdered if caught off-guard, and uneducated muggles were not prepared to face wizards in combat, so were almost always caught off guard.

Originally when a bus full of St Trinian's girls lagging behind the others wound up missing, then got discovered later with all of the occupants dead, more of the country heaved a sigh of relief than demanded a manhunt.

It was a much simpler cleanup for the Ministry of Magic's Obliviator squads than cleaning up after the nuns had been. Most muggles felt a busload of dead St Trinian's girls was quite understandable given the mayhem that normally went on in that institution.

However, this time Hermione Jane was on that bus.

The busses were just getting out into the countryside, the one Hermione was on lagging far behind, when they pulled into a curve where the other busses out ahead couldn't see it for the distance and spells flew out of the forest into it, smashing glass so fragments went flying everywhere while other spells disintegrated the wheels.

That was an instant disaster for the vehicle, turning an almost-smooth ride into a complete wreck in under a second.

As the bus came to rest after a long skid, injured children everywhere (especially the ones who'd been hanging halfway out the windows) Hermione came up with nothing but a cut on one cheek, fine everywhere else due to her armor, and silently endorsed Ann's idea to work on magical armored makeup, even while checking around for the casters.

They weren't hard to find. They weren't even trying to hide themselves. Four wizards and one witch in Death Eater garb were coming out of concealment at the side of the road and rushing the bus before the wreck had even settled.

In the original timeline the Death Eaters would have stunned or paralyzed all of the students before the shock of their crash had worn off, then taken away their dazed prisoners for the revel that would only end in the death of each muggle girl.

Hermione wasn't about to put up with any of that.

Jane had, in various forms, been preparing for this for years; first as the original Hermione she'd gone through special training with the Order for that duel to humiliate Harry, but also every second she could spare since being flung back in time. She had three curses in the air before one blasted open the head of the first Death Eater to reach the dazed schoolgirls.

Not having anticipated any resistance out of what had supposedly been a raid on solely muggle targets, the Death Eaters had that 'even hardened criminals could be killed if caught off guard' phenomena come back at them and two of their number went down without ever knowing what was going on.

A third dropped as a tripping jinx caused her to impale herself on the suddenly enlarged spikes of a handful of sharpened jacks spilled in front of her. Ironically, the jacks hadn't even been Hermione's, she'd just seen they'd fallen from the pocket of one of her schoolmates.

Three down, two to go, but the remaining two Death Eaters were no longer off-guard and, seeing they were being opposed by only a single witch, determined to simply add her to the festivities as part of their revenge for their fallen fellows.

Hermione dodged a burst of spellfire to her left, rolling under the bludgeoner that would have crushed her head, drawing her Malfoy wand as she went. The extra surprise of being attacked wandlessly had given her opponents enough pause she'd gotten a third kill out of her opening volley, but the other two were now shielded and coming at her for all they were worth, so she would need the extra power boost of using a wand - despite the risk, as they truly had no idea how the Ministry tracked those things.

Spotting a machinegun among the spilled school supplies, Jane summoned it wandlessly while casting up a dirt wall with her wand to stop the two Crucios headed her way. When the wall exploded under the force of the two Unforgivables, Hermione had dropped prone, braced the Bren on its bipod and fired, brass flying everywhere as she just sprayed toward where she hoped the Death Eaters to be.

When the belt ran out she looked up over the smoking barrel to see one Death Eater torn to ribbons and the other standing there staring in shock at his dismembered comrade.

That seemed to change the momentum of things, and the previously shocked schoolgirls rose then roared and mounted a counterattack. Hockey sticks swung high, then low, and all that happened after that was simply the mutilation of bodies.

They drove on to St Trinian's with the naked corpses of those Death Eaters suspended upside down by ropes, spread eagled over the front, back and sides of the bus, girls hanging out of windows waving gin bottles triumphantly in the air - after Hermione had repaired the bus enough to move, of course.

Actually, it ran better after than before.

OoOoO

Hermione Ann could not have been more unprepared for the difference in the way she was being treated. But then, she was no longer the buck toothed, frizzy haired bookworm that was still subconsciously her self image.

Nor could they treat her as one.

It did not take long for the truly popular girls to have Hermione Ann sorted out. As she was neither an acid-tongued elite, nor one of their sycophants, she didn't belong in the cutting edge popular cliques. Still, she was far too well-dressed and fashion wise for demoting to the anonymous rabble (as had always been her position before).

So she got shunted to one of the many clusters of attractive, semi-popular girls, whereupon she was immediately grabbed by one group who decided to be friends, glomming onto her and bonding over makeup tips. They were happy, healthy, uncomplicated girls who, while well-off, were not in the least bit spoiled, and full of sweetness and light. Hermione thought they'd all have made ideal Hufflepuffs, as they were a very hugging group, and in the same boat as her: beautiful, but neither acid-tongued campus queens nor followers.

There was Dakota, Gina (aka Genevieve) and Kayla (Macayla) Jensen, and their cousin Amber (also a Jensen), as well as Brittany, the daughter of their mother's best friend.

"What is it with me always falling in with clans of redheads?" Hermione thought to herself, noting the Jensen girls all had long, red hair.

OoOoO

The last bus finally pulled into the gates of St Trinian's, which were missing half their letters, and to which some joker had attached a skull and crossbones, along with the legend, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here."

Jane would have passed it off as idle fancy, save for the rather disturbing fact that the skull and crossed femurs looked unfortunately real, perhaps the remains of some former student. In all, it was quite unsettling.

Still, her bus pulled in with all the pride and jubilation of victorious soldiers returning home. As the rush of the crowd pulled everyone up to their dormitories, Hermione just helplessly went along, hands on her pockets so hopefully nobody could pick them for the things she'd looted from the Death Eater's bodies.

She'd recognized Rookwood among the corpses.

Things were barely settled in the first-form dormitory when a group of fourth-formers appeared in the doorway, arms crossed and stances forceful. The girl in their lead declared, "Alright girls, time for hazing. You aren't truly a St Trinian's girl until you've gotten pregnant, killed a man, drunk ten shots at one sitting, ran a scam or broke the house gambling."

"Well, you won't need to bother with this one, then," Kim Novak shoved Hermione Jane forward. "She killed four men on the bus trip in today - right in front of everyone!"

"That's right, you were the one," one of the fourth-forms nodded to the rest. "I recognize her. Don't know how she killed the first three, we were a bit roughed up by the crash, but the fourth she finished off with a heavy machine gun she'd swiped from Brenda Holiday. Then she looted the bodies while we had our backs turned dealing with the last one. And when we were wondering over how she did that, she looted the last."

There came murmurs of appreciation from the fourth formers about her style.

~Confundus is such a useful charm,~ Jane thought to herself.

"Alright, you're in. That's some impressive work for your first day," the lead of the older girls admitted grudgingly. "Don't do any more or we'll have to elect you to student government. Alright, the rest of you lot, line up! Foot of your beds, skirts up, panties down, bend over the footboards. Each of you deserves fifty swats for daring to come to St Trinian's. You can take the hits or buy them off at a pound each. Any of you who cry out get extra punishment, every *time* you cry out!" The older girls all wore wicked grins.

Staring with fear at the hockey sticks carried by the fourth-form girls, the suddenly terrified first formers knew what would be delivering the swats, and that it would be almost impossible *not* to cry out.

Terrified, pleading eyes met Hermione's from the rest of the blonde club, and not a few of the other new girls. It was obvious none of them had the cash to buy out.

Hermione sighed. Oh, well. They'd helped her to get out of this. She guessed it was only right she try and return the favor. Of course, if she got involved in trying to stop the bullying, that only invited more bullying on herself.

Jane didn't want to be bullied, but then she recalled Clara's earlier statement about the way you act on your first day deciding your image forever. Surprisingly one of her dad's mottoes floated to the top of her mind right after: "Prove yourself to your boss on the first day or you'll be proving yourself to him forever."

Then she saw the forest of hockey sticks held by the fourth form girls and her resolve wavered. Amazingly, it was one of Lucius' statements, relayed by Tina, that decided her: "Sometimes you are either holding the sword, or under it."

Bullies aimed for weaker targets, and she'd already gotten something of a tough girl image. She had no idea whether that image was tough enough, but decided that showing fear now could only invite attacks on her person later. Hermione furiously cast her mind about for what she could do to help those in the blonde club who'd already helped her, and maybe the rest of the students in her year as well.

All of this passed through her well-ordered mind in an instant, then she turned her attention to the resolution that presented itself. She thought about it a second, performing a quick count of her fellow first-formers, then stated, "So, by my calculations, the bank holds two thousand bottom swats against these girls, each swat valued at one pound. Is that correct?"

Several of the mystified fourth-formers met eyes in confused shrugs. Some tried counting it out on their fingers. Another sat down with a calculator to work out the difficult problem of forty girls owing fifty swats per bottom.

Hermione despaired of getting any kind of education there, other than the kind she was getting - bullying and how to respond to desperate situations.

"Yeah! That's two thousand." The one with the calculator rose. "What? You gunna buy them off?"

~That wouldn't be difficult,~ Hermione realized. With her new trust account that was pocket change, although to these girls obviously it was a fortune. However, then she caught the greedy looks in their eyes. ~If I do, that labels me as a 'swag with cash' and I'll be a victim until they've gotten it all. And they won't stop til they've wrung me dry. No, best to proceed as I'd planned.~

She tossed her head in false confidence. "I was thinking to gamble for them."

Before she knew it, the fourth-formers had pulled out decks of cards, poker chips, even a roulette wheel, and were handling them all like experts. The ones with the cards were even performing complicated tricks. "What's your game?" the lead one smirked. Markers were being produced as each girl was forced to sign forms declaring they were worth bottom swats in increments of ones, fives and tens, totaling fifty per first form girl.

Realizing the older students had been gambling intensively for years, and probably knew hundreds of ways to cheat, Hermione declared, "Coin flip, double or nothing."

From the smug looks on their faces she'd just made a terrible mistake.

One of the fourth-formers produced a coin. "Heads we win, tails you lose."

She was about to toss it in the air when Hermione added, "And if it doesn't come down on its own not only do I win you owe me two thousand swats on your own behinds."

The fourth former paused, looked at her fellows then declared, "Fine then," and flipped the coin.

Jane banished it into the ceiling, using skills Ann had perfected on books. The looks on the faces of the fourth formers as it lodged into the beam were priceless. Suddenly the fourth form girls found themselves crowded by the newly confident first form, and despite the size difference their looks were quite threatening as they produced more bottom swat IOUs for the older girls to sign.

Apparently it was bad form to welsh on a bet, so they started signing.

While they were doing that, Hermione eyed a bottle, one of the many empties stuffed into the odd corners of the room, and walked casually over to fetch it, carefully checking to see it was long dry and casting a surreptitious Scourgify on it to make sure, then filled it up with water from a quick Aquamenti before turning around to wave it in the faces of the other students, casting a very subtle Confundus on them beforehand to make them think this looked and smelled like the hard liquor the bottle reported it to be.

She then tipped back the bottle and drank the whole thing.

A bit on the complicated side. She could have just grabbed one of the many actual bottles of booze lying about and tried to chug it, but the taste of alcohol was awful and even though theoretically she would be immune so it wouldn't affect her, it would ruin things to throw it up.

But she'd drunk bottled water plenty of times.

Wiping her mouth after finishing, she looked over at her fellow first-formers, seeing them gape at her amazed. "What are you looking at?"

"We're waiting for you to drop dead of alcohol poisoning," Sandy told her frankly, in shock over what she'd just seen.

"Yeah, did your parents feed you milk or put a nipple on a bottle of whiskey?" Mary added in wonder.

"Can't you at least have the decency to slur? Act dizzy? Anything?" Rachel Davies asked.

"Oh, don't you worry, she'll be falling unconscious any moment now," Kim assured the rest. "Then maybe we can get her stomach pumped to save her life."

"I'll have you know I drink this much all the time," Jane told them primly, secretly celebrating at the success of her illusion.

"So," Rachel asked again, "Is that your first liver transplant, or your twenty-first?"

"You're not pregnant, are you?" The fourth-form leader eyed her strangely, handing over to her the collected stacks of bottom swat receipts.

"No," Jane demurred, accepting said stacks of IOUs.

"Shame," the older girl looked away, almost disappointed. "That would have made you the second first-former in the school's history to qualify in every category on her first day. But you're already on your way to future Head Girl material."

"On my way to?" Hermione blinked, slightly offended by the qualifier. Then she cast her mind back over the exchange, and this time caught the 'Heads we win, tails you lose' cheat, and blushed, ashamed of herself for falling for that.

And it wasn't like they'd needed it. When she at last dug the coin out of the rafter where it had lodged itself, she discovered that it was a two-headed coin.

OoOoO

Hermione Tina breathed in the fresh air.

Ah! It was good to be young, blonde and beautiful (not to mention rich) in the sunny land of California!

She was *so* glad she'd told the Ministry workers that she'd like her job to be as a muggle film star! After all, if there was one place on Earth more crooked than St. Trinian's, it was the entertainment industry.

They'd handed her off to their American counterparts, who'd gone and set her up (at British request) in Hollywood with an already signed contract to produce an action movie.

The studios all did a couple of high budget films each year that were intended to be flops, so they could write off all of those costs as a tax credit. It was simplicity itself, and hurt no one's feelings, to get her in with a leading role on one of those.

The one they picked was an attempt to spoof Bond films, only using prepubescent kids.

Now Hermione hardly cared about what was normally associated with that tumultuous career choice. Fame was poison (just look at what happened to Harry!) and money meant nothing to her. But really, it was one of the few jobs on Earth where you could train for all sorts of normally illegal skills and get paid to do it!

Being an 'action star', however briefly, covered up professional training in demolitions and safe cracking (for authenticity to some thirty second scenes), martial arts and firearms (for the inevitable fight scenes, where knowing how to hold yourself and move was to be desired), how to fall, roll, and avoid taking damage from calamitous things (as she would be doing all her own stunts, so professional stunt training was appropriate), skydiving and stunt driving, as well as lockpicking taught by some of the best in the business!

Naturally, being all glitz and no substance, they tried to give her just enough to do her role. But being Hermione she wouldn't let them! She'd already demanded in depth instruction and supplementary reading materials so she could study the official sources in detail, to 'add substance to her character'.

And, well, since the intent of the film was to waste a large amount of money, they were fairly easy to bully into paying for all that professional level instruction, as well as the normal school tutors they'd have been springing for anyway.

She didn't even have to confound them very much.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

I am beginning to realize that Tina has a 'go for the jugular' approach to things, which it is amazing that my own characters are teaching me about themselves. But that's the way it goes sometimes.

And I love it. 


	8. Chapter 8

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Eight

by Skysaber

OoOoO

Jane arrived bright and early at St. Trinian's for school the next morning, having spent the previous afternoon and evening with Ann at Cheltenham getting pictures taken of both of them there, and getting introduced to all Ann's friends so they knew Jane, all to reinforce their cover that that was where Jane was really going to school.

One last favor the Muggle Relations Department had done for them (before losing their memories of the entire thing) was to have set it up with Cheltenham Ladies College so that Tina was officially taking their courses remotely this year, with accredited Cheltenham tutors, so as not to disrupt her film career.

It was less of a hassle for the triplet Hermiones that way, as there was less to cover, so less of a smoke screen was needed.

But Jane still needed her background to be firmly established there, so that was what she'd spent the first day after school doing. But today she was back at St Trinian's, and when she noticed the complete lack of activating in the classrooms, she naturally went to check in on the First Form dormitories, only to see countless drugged out bodies.

It was the same all throughout the building. The entire school, faculty and students alike, had apparently had a binge of drugs and alcohol last night, and among the many in the first form who were simply out cold, there were, Jane counted, six unnaturally still bodies of those who'd overdosed fatally, discolored as the blood pooled to the lower portions in death. There was really no mistaking it.

Among those who'd died were Mary Clancy and Sandy Mackie, two of her fellow blonde club members. Sandy had even been the leader, and first to welcome her.

It was more of a blow than she'd anticipated to see two of her first muggle school chums laid out like that, especially when the cause was their own bad habits! Swallowing her bile, Jane got on her communications mirror (paid for by Malfoy funds), and called. "Tina? I'm going to need the recipe of that venom immunity potion. It looks like my entire year are crack addicts. And two of my friends just died of overdose... Right."

She copied the recipe down. It would have to wait to that night as her parent's house to brew it, however, as she simply wasn't going to risk imbibing anything made here! She'd need more than thirty doses just to cover the addicts in her year. But she wasn't going to lose another of them that way again!

Then Jane rolled up her sleeves and got to work on using those sobriety charms Tina had gotten for her. She was supposed to learn to cast them in her sleep, wasn't she? Well, here was an opportunity to get plenty of practice!

OoOoO

Happy Days had fled Riddle Manor and gone to hide under a table somewhere.

Apocalyptic was the only way to describe Voldemort's rage on finding out that two of his raiding parties had been destroyed within hours of each other.

Never stable on the best of days, more prone to kill his own followers for their failings, both real and imagined, than to personally take the fight to his enemies, Voldemort did not take the news of two major raids failing well. That would normally call for a round of Crucios to all involved, but in both cases there had been no Death Eater survivors, and worse yet, news of these losses had been carried to him within minutes of each other.

This did not stabilize his temper.

The destruction was enormous, although most of his followers lived through his reaction to losing the raiding parties. The exceptions had been the messengers to carry the unhappy news. But Voldemort clamped down control over his anger rather quickly. The one raid against the Bones family had lost him near a dozen of his best people, then five more lost, just disappeared on a routine raid on the muggle world to pick up victims for their next revel. It was intolerable! But he could ill afford to take out his anger on these loyal servants and lose yet more of his followers.

But as if to compound the injury Rookwood had been lost among them. The Death Eater Unspeakable was one of only two people he had, besides himself, who was able to craft and attach magical artificial limbs. That capacity would be sorely missed, and he would be far from easy to replace. Riddle had been lucky to get an in to that department in the first place, and it would not do to push any of his remaining contacts there too far, too fast, especially not without Rookwood there to carefully nudge them along, guiding their loyalties.

Voldemort paused, backing up a step mentally. Loyal servants? There was a thought. It was time to cull out the spies. Apparently Dumbledore had grown some balls and actually started to resort to lethal measures. So it was time to cut off his supply of information.

Dumbledore was an information junkie. He would not act at all without enough evidence to convict in a muggle court of law. Shut down his spies and the man would flounder around, deaf and helpless, refusing to move.

Yes, that would do for an excellent start to Voldemort's revenge.

OoOoO

Dumbledore wept for the loss of pureblood lives in the recent string of failed raids. His dear friend Severus had just come to him with the news that nearly twenty Death Eaters had died since the Order had purged then reformed itself into a fighting unit.

Such a misguided waste of potential.

Why couldn't James or his former associates understand? Killing a pureblood was always wrong. It damaged the future of their society severely each time one of those precious lives was lost. That was why, despite being thrown into a major war, Dumbledore refused to kill or allow any of his followers to do so. It was imperative that the enemy survive!

A few muggle lives here or there was nothing so long as the purebloods got preserved.

Of course the hypocrite never considered those pureblood lives he'd thrown away among his own followers, trying with all his might to preserve those fighting for his enemy.

Still, Dumbledore was concerned. He, like idealists all over the world, was happy to spend other people's money. But when it came time to foot the bill for his plans on his own the amount was clearly beyond his ability (or perhaps willingness) to pay.

There was so much to do that all required money. The press would report anything they were paid to, and keeping up a continual stream of articles to mold the public conscience was vital to keeping the rambunctious purebloods alive once this war was done. Similarly, what heads he could not turn in the Ministry with his titles would always respond well to a big sack of galleons, and their cooperation was vital to the war effort! Pureblood lords might be executed otherwise, which was simply intolerable!

No, without a war fund Dumbledore was helpless to shape the course of future events.

Clearly he needed some new saps to sponge money off of.

OoOoO

Jane's first week at St Trinian's was spent mostly working in the school infirmary treating drug overdose patients before they became lethal, and learning what she had never expected to on initially deciding to go there - healing!

The school nurse was a frightful creature, once an accredited doctor who'd gotten thrown out of the medical industry for lots of unnecessary surgery and drug pushing. After evading jail time she'd somehow gotten on at St Trinian's (something Jane was to learn, to her horror, was all too common with the staff there). But the woman's main interest was to harvest organs more than save lives. She'd cut up girls who were no more than slightly ill in order to make a packet selling their parts on the black market.

Kidneys, livers, hearts and eyes were all valuable transplant material, and many needy patients would resort to shady sources in desperation, creating a thriving market for organleggers.

Well, one of the very first things Jane did was put a stop to THAT! She no sooner learned that was the case (and the reason why girls there avoided the infirmary if at all possible) than she put the nurse under compulsion to provide the best care possible!

Then she had to stop the woman from carving up a couple of sixth form girls for parts to sell to get the money to buy medicine and machinery to be able to do that.

After layering multiple layers of compulsion around the school nurse in order to get her to do her job properly, and not to cut up anyone for parts, but to actually do her best to assure the best care for every patient, Jane had, of necessity, hovered around to make certain she was doing her job right, and somehow found herself acting as substitute for all the medicines and machinery the school simply didn't have.

Magic was the only way to address those problems, as any drugs they bought the girls would sneak in and use to get high, while any medical devices were stolen and sold on the black market. So, to do a proper job of health care, magic was required to fill in the gaps.

So Jane got tons of practice, getting rush orders of magical books on healing, and being hip deep in reference materials at all times, especially during that first week where the whole school was having a week-long party. Curing their hangovers only seemed to spur them on to more excessive consumption. After that the bulk of the drugs and booze ran out, so it was less of a nightmare, and she got to spend more time dealing with other kinds of injuries.

Coincidentally, that was when she'd completed her batches of the venom immunity potion, which took a week to brew properly. But by then she was no longer so worried about her friends dropping dead from drug overdose, and started worrying about them being beaten to death, as the mood of the school almost seemed to switch from party atmosphere to active war zone!

The school nurse with her medical experience was a great deal more help there, able to teach Hermione all sorts of things about trauma, wounds and injuries of all sorts (having had to deal with them for years now, even if only to know what to avoid when harvesting). While Jane had her hands full looking up all the spells she'd needed to treat them all.

On the plus side, the Headmistress called Hermione Jane in to congratulate her on doing a splendid job, having cut start-of-term casualties by seventy percent! The student body also recognized her, naming her post in student government as Chief Medical Officer, allowing her to choose her uniform from the Star Trek series of her choice (she selected The Original Series). Still, several times during this Jane was found huddling in Ann's arms after school, wondering why she'd ever been so crazy as to go there!

It didn't take Hermione Jane long to come to a functional set of initial observations about the students at St Trinian's. She knew by the end of her first week they were a greedy, selfish, short-sighted and lazy lot, and whatever gifts they might have had buried under those bad attitudes didn't matter, because they had that peculiar self-destructive habit where they'd spend twelve hours of effort to get out of one hour of honest work! It was like an entire school full of Ronald Weasleys! (Although with even more bad habits, if that was possible.)

On reflection, Jane had to revise that evaluation slightly. It wasn't *just* Ron. They had their share of Crabbe and Goyle equivalents. Dudley Dursley would've fit in splendidly there, if only he'd been a girl. It should hardly have been surprising to her. The school was a collection of all of the worst discipline problems in the English speaking world, after all.

There was an appalling amount of ignorance on display from all parties, of course.

Luckily, a bare sliver of the student population was worth something, as they also had their share of equivalents to the Weasley Twins, people who were downright brilliant, just didn't play by the same system of rules everyone else recognized. Although even those had a darker twist to them than the wonderful twins she knew from Hogwarts, as the local variety were all focused on money making schemes like gambling, drug brewing, and porn.

But it was clearly the Rons of the school that set the standard for everyone else: endless (and in most cases brainless) pursuits of their own peculiar pleasures, to the exclusion of all else. Laziness to the point of insanity, and general self-destructive attitudes were all there in full measure, as well as the delusion that eventually the world could be coerced into serving them up happiness on a platter, as if some mystical switch would be flipped in the heavens that would turn them from lazy, know-nothing layabouts into happy, productive citizens with good jobs - jobs that required no effort or skills on their part, of course.

It was a crushing disappointment for Hermione. Here she'd sacrificed her educational future, the respect of her sisters, and her own self image in order to attend what she'd hoped was a junior college for spies, and what did she get? A school full of Ron.

It was enough to make one cry.

Hermione would've left the school right there, jumped ship and made her way over to join Ann at Cheltenham, save for the presence of those rare few students who were like Fred and George. Those few who actually knew something, had skills that could be of use to her, and could potentially be convinced to impart them to her if she asked correctly.

There were students at St Trinian's, a bare few to be sure, but some, who knew things like safe cracking and how to pick pockets, and it was from those few she could hopefully rescue her original plans for attending the place.

But next year for sure she was going back to Cheltenham! Heck, probably by Christmas, as there couldn't possibly be enough here for her to learn to keep her occupied even that long. Maybe she could even get out by Halloween, then forget all about this place.

The saddest thing about the St. Trinian's students, Hermione decided at length, was that they all had some hidden gifts. None of them were morons by breeding, only by choice. The regular school system was expert at dealing with the less than gifted, being dumb was not enough to get you thrown out or transferred to a place such as this. These students had chosen ignorance as it was easier to get than intelligence.

They simply refused to improve themselves. The vast majority of them were bright girls, but never applied themselves. They assumed things would come their way without effort.

But life didn't work that way. Diligent effort got rewarded. Laziness did not.

Actually, there was more to it than that. While it was true that the public schools were great at dealing with morons, and would happily graduate people unable to read, the one thing they did not tolerate to any great degree was disobedience. Some level of rebelliousness was almost required, but you cross a certain line and the system had no more use for you. And, sadly, it was easier to cross that line if you were brilliant, bored and not being challenged, than it was if you were simply an idiot.

As Hermione knew perhaps better than anyone, the secret to success in school was to do what you were told. Absolute conformity was the goal. Always turn over your test paper when the teacher tells you to, follow the bells, and always ask for permission before you do anything not listed on the schedule.

School was mostly a place to learn to take orders, sit in orderly rows, and pay absolute attention to your superior. It was made to train people for mundane jobs, where they would use few if any skills beyond the ability to memorize inane facts and obey orders. Showing those qualities guaranteed success in education, regardless of what you learned.

But these girls had rejected the concept of learning anything. They didn't have any interest in anything unless there was the prospect of immediate pleasure involved. Obedience and discipline were out of the question.

They were savage idiots. And if they'd been merely idiots the regular school system would have been happy to deal with them. It was the savagery that was their real problem. Under that, many of the St Trinian's girls were actually smarter and more gifted than the rich bitches who prospered at such places as the private schools Hermione had attended before. You had to work pretty hard at nonconforming before the system would throw you away, but these girls had done it.

So St Trinian's was really a school full of geniuses only pretending to be like Ron, Crabbe and Goyle. It was enough to make Hermione cry at the waste of potential.

OoOoO

Tina came home after their first week of school to check in on them and touch bases. It was so far she wouldn't be able to do this all year, but it made sense to have her help them check in on the Malfoys the first could of times, and it was nice to see her.

Of course, everyone was eager to share their news all at once. Hermione Jane had already picked up another hundred poisons to add to their immunity potion, and was quite vocal about some of them. "After what I've seen, curare is *definitely* something I want to be immune to! I found out our school nurse is not the only medical professional attracted to the bounty of thirty thousand per kidney, and more for other parts, and so was dosing healthy people with curare so they wouldn't move around too much while she butchered them for parts!"

The other girls shuddered, never having even *imagined* that level of perfidity!

But Hermione Jane wasn't finished by a long shot. "Also, for the poison immunity potion, methanol and formaldehyde can be present in illegally made beverages (like the "Sterno Cocktails" some girls make over there), especially methylated spirits that are sometimes consumed as a substitute alcohol despite causing blindness and paralysis even in small dosages. Also, being immune to mercury, chloroform, arsenic, and ammonia would be helpful. Cleaning supplies can be misused, and something I wish I'd never learned: cracking open a thermometer is an easy way to kill someone you don't like."

Ann and Tina clutched each other as Jane finished venting, "Draino and other bathroom cleaning products, anything with white powder or crystals, is also something frequently cut into the street drugs. And the effects are noxious! So we'll want to avoid them. Here, I have a list, complete with samples gathered..."

Tina snatched it quickly away from her, hoping that would shut her up. "I'll take care of it!"

"Good." Jane felt relieved at getting such ready support, but was puzzled by their reaction. Why were they acting so upset? This was nothing! Why, some of the things the younger girls got up to... Indeed, it was something of a rule of thumb that the smaller a St Trinian's girl is, the more dangerous she is, especially with a "weapon" (most commonly a lacrosse or hockey stick) in her hands - though none of them could ever be considered harmless! Why, the stories she could tell. She hadn't even broached the topic of that medical toxin removal spell. Technicolor sweat didn't even *begin* to cover it! It was like every artificial color you'd ever eaten was coming out of your pores simultaneously!

She had such *gross* things she could be discussing!

Seeing that in her expression, the other girls wanted to scream out in fright.

OoOoO

Ann and Tina had excused themselves probably sooner than was decent, using the excuse of going up to check on their clones at the Malfoy's, leaving Jane confused at their behavior behind them.

Neither had ever imagined some of the horrors that she had gone through in that first week, and were not at all anxious to hear about them, thank you very much!

Apparating to the borders of the property so as not to alert anyone inside, even though as legal daughters they had a right to apparate in through the wards (not that they wanted the inhabitants to know they *could* apparate this young), Tina was telling Ann, "Remember, the wards around the house detect by hostile intent. If you mean to do harm by something, it doesn't matter what that something is, you will be stopped. So at best you can only do things like what we did to Draco, something that inconveniences but does no real damage.

"Also remember, Draco doesn't have permission to leave the wards. We do, but that's a different matter. He doesn't have a nanny that can be charmed to give that permission like we do, or did rather. Ultimately, it's Lucius who has the legal and magical authority to decide who gets to do what in this household. We're just lucky in that loophole he left open that we only needed permission from an adult to leave."

Ann wasn't about to be left out of any lecturing going on, so added her two bits, "Also it was fortunate that we could fool the elves so easily into letting us cross the ward line by leaving a cloned body behind." Her face scrunched up in contemplation. "You'd think it would be harder to create magical clones than it is."

Tina shrugged, having gotten past that in her contemplations long ago. "You'd like to think so, wouldn't you? I mean, that is the natural assumption, but I really don't know why it is. We *knew* it was possible to magically create bodies long ago. That's what Voldemort was trying to do for himself over most of our years at school. I don't know why any of us thought it was impossible."

"I never thought it was impossible!" Ann protested, only to wilt under Tina's gaze. She knew better. "Alright, I guess I did. And, now that you bring the subject up, Voldemort did try to create bodies over most of our lives."

"Now, one thing I can tell you," Tina instructed, having read loads of the right books, "is that cloning a living creature is loads easier than trying to create an entirely new one. You can't clone a dead one, that's life from death and necromancy is not only icky, but doesn't work out all that well. The closest example of what you'd get is vampires, neither living nor dead, but possessing properties of each. No, life comes from life, so what we are doing is the easiest form of cloning of all, just an exact duplicate of an already alive individual. But you'd need something alive to make any sort of clone. Then you'd modify from that base. That's the only use of dead tissue, to provide material to modify living tissue."

"Shh! Here we come, and there's an elf with us!"

Both girls quieted as the triplet's three clones came running around the side of the manor chasing some puppies, one of which almost certainly had to be Draco. A house elf who had been following behind looked up as the two real girls came into view. "Oh! Is the mistresses returning to their bodieses?"

Without giving it any thought, Ann canceled her clone.

She had no reason to think anything of it, but when her clone got recalled that Hermione who reabsorbed her well-exercised double suddenly got *very* sore muscles, and could recall loads of playing around with puppies. Suddenly acquiring a week's worth of memories of her clone running around playing with the dogs and puppies nearly knocked her out.

She awoke to see Tina bending over her looking concerned.

"Was I out long?"

Tina shook her head, looking pensive. "No, not long at all. But those runes we'd drawn on ourselves to get memories of our muggle records showed up glowing on your forehead again, only they weren't the same ones we'd drawn. My guess is Rookwood modified them, then somehow made them permanent. Ours certainly weren't supposed to last this long. But I don't have any idea what they did."

Ann sat up, rubbing her head and feeling agony in every limb as her body had suddenly gone through a week's worth of exercise in a moment. "Well, I don't know anything about what those runes were set up to do, but I can tell you what they did. I just got hit by all of my clone's memories of this past week! It felt awful!"

"So, do you remember everything?" Tina blinked in surprise.

"Yes." Ann scowled fiercely. "Including dinner with the Malfoys. Now I totally agree with you, that family has to *die*! And in the future I'll save my sympathies for those that actually deserve them. Who'd have thought that Draco and Lucius were just the latest iteration of the same insanity? From the stories they tell, that family has had blackened souls for hundreds of years! They had one of the elves reciting family history to us, and even in a couple of cases when a child was orphaned and never knew anything about their parents they *still* turned out like that! And they *boast* of it! Like.. they are so proud they have always been evil monsters!"

Tina sighed and nodded timidly. "Who knows? People always talk about the Potters being wonderful people, all the way back as far as anyone remembers. The Malfoys seem the opposite. Maybe good or evil are inheritable in a magical world?"

"Stranger things have happened," Ann agreed, then sighed, dropping her shoulders. "And if you can curse a teaching position, so the same sort of thing happens to whoever holds the post, why not a family so whoever is in it behaves similarly? Maybe that's why the curse on the DADA job was so hard to break? Perhaps it was just a variant of generational magic meant to be used on families."

"You realize if any of these observations are anywhere close to accurate, we can no longer afford to risk being Malfoys, even if only legally or by adoption." Tina stated, testing her sister's reactions to the observation. "We can't afford the contamination."

"Do you think all dark families are like that?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. This is all purest speculation."

"We'll do some research on it first. Any idea why what happened, happened?"

"You mean with the clone, and you getting her memories?" Tina inquired, and seeing her sister nod tiredly, began thinking out loud. "Well, I didn't get to see them all that long, only enough to know there were quite a few I didn't recognize - and that from nearly a NEWT worth of Runes, you'll recall! Anyway, at a guess and from what scraps of conversation we remember from when Rookwood was discussing them with Lucius, I'd say they thought our runes were to enhance memory and so on, so they tried to improve on that. Then you set up a clone that was an exact duplicate, and because of the magic it is an *exact* duplicate, including those runes. So, what happens when runes meant to make you remember better are duplicated? Both sets would strive to perform their function and remember. Then when you recombine them..."

She trailed off significantly.

"You get beat up by a week's worth of healthful outdoor exercise," Ann mourned woefully.

"It's only a theory," Tina amended, trying to be comforting.

Ann rubbed her sore head, aching from all the pain signals sent in from all over her body. "But Jane told me Rookwood was killed on our first day of school. So unless he left notes, or told Lucius every detail, we may never know for certain."

"Yeah, pity we can't duplicate it for others though," Tina sucked in her lower lip. "Or make more than one clone. Believe me, I've tried, and it's not possible. I don't know why."

"What?" Ann's brain was muddled by pain. "Why would you *want* to? It's miserable!"

"Just think!" Tina was now bubbly and cheerful. "You say you know *everything* that clone experienced! Just as if you'd been through it yourself, including the exercise. So, if you were to create another, and set her down to read half of the Malfoy's library..."

Again, she trailed off significantly.

Despite the pain, Ann's eyes widened. "Oh!"

"Nifty idea, huh?" Tina gloated.

Ann's attention was once more focused on her pain. "You try it out. Reabsorb your clone, then tell me again how much you like this."

Tina blanched. "Uh, I think I'll get a pain relieving potion first."

"Get two," Ann commanded, grumpy.

The elf they'd all been ignoring popped off, then returned with the appropriate potions. Tina looked at hers, then drew out her communications mirror, "Jane?"

"Didn't we just get away from her?!?" Ann whispered, scandalized, having drunk her potion with unseemly haste and starting to feel better.

"She's the only healer we've got," Tina returned. "And we need her to check you for muscle damage and so on. Besides," now Tina began to look a little afraid. "I don't dare let her go any longer before she absorbs her own clone. One week put you down. Two might kill her! We can't afford to let too much exercise accumulate to hit us all at once! and I don't dislike her stories enough to want her to drop dead on us."

"Oh," Ann's eyes widened in realization.

OoOoO

The first week of school at St Trinian's was one long party, lasting until the booze and drugs ran out. Then, as if a pendulum swinging back in the other direction, the second week was one of violence as old scores got settled and new pecking orders established, taking up the slack left by students dead, graduated, arrested or missing, and incorporating the new ones.

After that things sort of settled down to a dull roar, almost sedate by comparison.

So it did not take much longer for Jane to have refined her initial observations about St Trinian's. Nothing had changed about her earlier observations, only a little more detail on why she felt things had happened that way: The place was a dumping ground for children not wanted by parents, the educational system, or indeed anyone else. And, having been given up on by everyone else, the girls had largely given up on themselves, indulging in all sorts of destructive habits.

Most of them were so desperate in their gambling and so on because they knew that no one else would take care of them, so they had to do it themselves. Several of the surviving blonde club members had even confessed as much to Jane, both drunken and not. It was enough to wrench the heart.

At that point Jane actually began to feel sorry for them. To her this was a sideline, and one that she could abandon at any time to go on to something better. But most of the St Trinian's students had nothing else, and nowhere else to go, and in their desperation and confusion, created (or at least perpetuated) this whole big mess.

So they weren't *exactly* like Ron. That boy, while he might have been poor, had every other resource to draw on, loving family and plenty of encouragement.

These girls had none. It was enough to change her opinion of them.

They were still savage, brutal beasts. But that was not entirely their faults. They'd gone feral only after all other sources abandoned them. Or so she thought, anyway.

Another advantage Ron had that these girls didn't was a real education. Teaching mistresses only went to St Trinian's when they had nowhere else that would take them, or were on the run from something, and teaching skill wasn't mandatory. Heck! The French mistress didn't even speak the language! The geography mistress couldn't read a map and the Classic Literature mistress was barely literate and spoke with a very lower-class accent!

What else could you expect of a school whose library was mostly porn?

It wasn't just the girls who had given up on themselves, the school had given up on itself too, barely even pretending to go through the motions of instructing anyone.

Jane didn't imagine she could fix all of their problems, or even any of them. For one thing, these people didn't see those as problems. They all felt they were getting away with something, never mind how it was all going to come back to bite them later.

Still, she was very seriously filling one of her more important roles, namely that of testing the Ministry's muggle acclimation kits on unsuspecting St Trinian's girls.

She might even be doing them a favor.

It was really quite simple: none of the Hermione's wanted anything the incompetent Ministry of Magic did messing with their brains without thoroughly testing it first to see if it actually worked, or was one of those lame-brained wonders they were all so proud of.

In any case it would be useful to have a few more skills, even though they were not talents that particularly excited the girls for the most part (although there were notable exceptions, they'd all like to ice skate, for an example). But they'd only like the skill if it worked and did as advertised. The Hermione triplets couldn't shake the very real fear that taking those candies would mess them up somehow and deprive them of valuable knowledge, as that Muggle Relations officer who'd taken them was downright stupid!

Still, it was easy enough to test, and the St Trinian's girls really didn't have anything to lose!

So Hermione Jane offered her fellow first-formers a chance for her to burn up ten swats worth of those IOU notes she was carrying against the bottoms of each girl to volunteer, if they'd help her by participating in a small experiment. She was predictably swarmed with girls eager to owe her fewer bottom swats, and who didn't particularly care what the experiment was, as they'd all probably taken worse risks just for a buzz!

Jane then used some compulsion charms to make sure the girls did their best and tested them on things like geography and history, the muggle school subjects they ought to have taken up until now, but also on those supplementary skills the halfblood had mentioned.

In all, she tested their muggle primary education, cooking skills (walrus and reindeer in particular, but anything they could do as the man hadn't known what that second cooking pill did), musical ability on the accordion and alpenhorn, and proper identification of plants.

Not surprisingly, the ignorance of her fellow St Trinian's students on those topics was vast.

The skills of skiing, ice skating and bowling ball stacking were, much to Hermione's surprise, much better represented (who stacks bowling balls, anyway?). But none of the ones she'd tested even knew what lapidary was.

The making of jewelry, actually. Not that you'd guess.

Still, having thoroughly tested her volunteer students on all of the subjects she could think of, (and been horrified by their general ignorance - the majority of these girls had been failing muggle primary school to one degree or another) Hermione Jane then administered to each of a select group one of each type of muggle acclimation candy, keeping one bunch clean as a control group, feeding them an ordinary butterscotch candy.

It was Hermione Jane's intention to test them all again in a week to see what effects, if any, positive or negative, there were in those girls' skill base and knowledge set.

And if they worked? Well, it cost only a couple of sickles per set. Perhaps she could do some people some good?

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

MUAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Do you know how to make a diamond? I had a jeweler explain it to me once. You start with a small fleck of diamond, then you heat it up to a precise temperature and arrange for a carbon drip to strike it right where the flame does. The heat gives the loose carbon atoms in the solution the energy they need to bond to the existing diamond as they are deposited and the solution evaporates away, and they just naturally match the pattern of the example's framework like puzzle pieces linking to a larger whole.

Oh, and having watched 5 of the 6 movies, and seen some of the original St Trinian's cartoons, I do not feel I am doing them a disservice here. If anything, I may have downplayed the place a trifle. It was a parody of violence and poor teaching, whose students were legendary in their disobedience, greed and ignorance. 


	9. Chapter 9

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Nine

by Skysaber

OoOoO

James silently blessed his wayward mind and oft-misspent youth. It had been mere weeks after the Order had reformed and already the tide of the war had turned completely! They'd heard of Death Eaters cowering in their homes, afraid to go out lest they be captured and interrogated and their plans and allegiances made known to all, or fearing they'd simply disappear on raids as so many of their fellows had done.

Bravery was not a dominant trait in most of the Dark Idiot's followers. The attacks had almost stopped completely, thanks in large degree to a few pranking geniuses set free of their previous constraints to actually show what they could do!

Oh, they'd mastered the official material taught at Hogwarts. How could they not? The basic skills could fuel so many interesting tangents! But the standard education, for the Marauders, was the starting point, the foundation to bigger and better things.

Take, for example, the portkey: wizarding transportation anywhere you wanted at the touch of a trigger mechanism. Only that trigger could be *anything* you wanted! Even the portkey itself could be nearly anything at all. The fun to be had from that item of magic alone was nearly unimaginable, such as the year when the toilet paper on the Hogwarts train was enchanted as portkeys to drop students into the middle of Hogsmead, most often with their pants down around their ankles. The trick had been in placement, as they hadn't wanted to involve any innocents in these little games.

The Marauders had very specifically and deliberately targeted their pranks on supporters of the current Dark Lord. Hey, if they wanted to run around killing people for having the wrong parents, or loudly admiring the people who did, they were fair game for a touch of embarrassment!

The portkey toilet paper had been a fun gag, but the Marauders had fun dropping their mortal enemies into any number of embarrassing situations. However, all of that childish mischief using regular portkeys had gotten topped for all time when Sirius worked out a method of creating a limited portkey, one based on some of the many disastrous failures in developing the common use version.

Standard portkeys were safe, fast and efficient. The Marauder Special Edition portkey was all of that, it just didn't transport a person's clothes. It only worked on living tissue. Many of their fellow students laughed themselves sick at the antics they got up to with that version, embarrassing Death Eater spawn in a wide variety of humiliating and amusing ways.

One of the muggleborns, a guy named Cameron, said he had a muggle cousin back in Hollywood who loved the concept and wanted to make a film out of it.

And the special portkey saved so much effort in crashing pureblood parties so you could sneak into their bathrooms to enchant the soap as a portkey to achieve nearly the same effect. Of course, that didn't stop the Marauders from sneaking into some purebloods' showers to plant other pranks, but it made things less predictable.

Snape never did figure out they'd had Peter slip into the luggage compartment of the train over Christmas break in fifth year to steal his underwear so they could enchant it so that it would randomly drop him naked into a drift whenever he got within a mile of snow.

And he'd been taking a holiday in Sweden that year.

Pity about his bits freezing off, but without a wand you can't cast warming charms. Rumor had it he'd had a replacement set made almost twice as large - three and a half inches.

But now that misspent youth was going towards good purposes, as Lily had proposed they use muggle air-powered dart pistols and enchant the darts as those special portkeys, dropping Death Eaters naked (it must be understood that includes no wands, armor, or other special tricks or devices) into cells they'd prepared, whereupon those Death Eaters could be stunned, dosed with Veritaserum, questioned, and then executed for their crimes.

Heck, they could automate the stunning part using the right rune set.

Their letter writer had suggested they confirm Death Eater identities, after all, and they were doing so. This was just their imaginative way of doing that. Although Athena had been right, the crimes these scum admitted to were fully worthy and deserving of death in all cases. You couldn't get a dark mark without being at least guilty of cold-blooded murder, and more often rape and prolonged torture too.

Better still, the air guns were nearly silent and could be used from cover, without any of the telltale incantations or balls of light you'd get from a speeding spell. So they gave less warning to the ambushee. Often one or two members of a Death Eater strike group could vanish and it would be seconds before their fellows would even notice they were gone!

Seconds that could and often were used to capture more of them, and to spring other traps on them, also in keeping with their mysterious benefactors suggestions. And, since they'd begun capturing so many of the enemy's agents, they had begun to learn plans for raids in the future, so had some warning to get the victims out of there and even set up more traps!

No, at the moment it was a bad idea to be a Dung Eater. But life was great for members of the reborn Order of the Phoenix. The current forces of the Dark Idiot were running scared, and their leader didn't know how to rally them!

Torture only gets you so far as a motivational tool, and he hadn't any others save for the promise of rape and pillage - promises that were turning up a little empty now.

Contrariwise, things were working out well for the previously beleaguered Order. Harry had been born right on schedule, at the end of July just hours after the Longbottoms had their boy. Lily was ecstatic over having her healthy boy, and so far they hadn't lost anyone since the Order had been reformed, while inflicting scores of losses on the enemy!

The old Order, under Dumbledore, had never inflicted any real harm upon their enemy, not once, and now they could take down a dozen of Voldy's agents in a single good night. It was driving the Dung Eaters and their snake fetish master frantic!

If he'd had any sense at all Voldemort would've called a stop to his raids until he'd learned how to counter their intelligence and stop being ambushed. But he couldn't do that and save face. Besides, it was vital to his plans to keep the momentum up, hoping to build up a crescendo of fear that would topple everything right into his lap. Plus, he just couldn't pay his followers without the right to torture, loot, pillage and rape.

Those were the reasons most of his followers had signed up for in the first place, and he couldn't keep recruiting new ones if his old crowd were grousing over his failure to deliver.

Of course, being afraid to go out on raids was impacting those benefits a bit. Currently the Order was so busy processing Death Eaters they'd captured they hadn't even had time to make use of that invitation to Malfoy Manor yet!

In keeping with their pen-pal's suggestion that they loot their foes, Sirius had even modified his already modified portkey design and had it drop all non-living tissue that the subject was carrying: their wands, galleons, clothes, etc, into a separate holding area so they could go through it (often with tongs) searching for the worthy bits of loot.

It had been, uh, surprising how lucrative this process was. Their oracle had been right, the Dung Eaters carried all sorts of devices of use in this war, and often great amounts of cash. That last James suspected was because some wealthy purebloods couldn't even imagine going out of the house without a comfortable wad of galleons. It was how they lived.

No, James knew many good, respectable people laboring at honest employment who would not make as much money in their lives as the Marauders had already bagged using that former prank item on murderers.

It was funny how the world worked sometimes.

OoOoO

Narcissa Malfoy was practicing sexy poses nude before the mirror in her bedroom when the door came open.

"Look, mommy. Look at Mr Stibbons!"

Narcissa glanced over at one of those annoying daughters, who was standing in the door holding a snake, a peculiar snake wearing a tie, a hat and an oversize pair of glasses.

By the time she had realized that snake was a basilisk she'd already turned to stone.

"Oh my!" Hermione Tina declared playfully. "However did that happen?" She turned the snake's face to her, speaking to it nose to nose. "Do you think she didn't prepare herself with the ritual that makes a person immune to a basilisk's gaze?" She forced the snake's head to nod for her, and acted concerned. "Oh, dear. Well, it's a good thing I put glasses on you so no one could be accidentally hurt by your gaze!"

She paused to giggle. "Hey! I know what we can do! We can play another game! It's called, 'How Long Will It Take Lucius To Notice?' and again, house elves can't tell, 'cause that would be cheating! And mommy is being so nice to play with me, too! Now where did I leave that white paint? Oh, Dobby!"

When Lucius came home he noted with annoyance that the statues had all been rearranged again, and as if her constant nagging weren't enough, Narcissa had obviously transfigured half of the sculptures into undraped women who looked just like her, all in lewd poses.

How tiresome.

Lucius Malfoy was a proud pureblood who took most of his meals alone in his suite. He had a wife and son, neither of whom he could stand. He also had three daughters whom he didn't think much of. He'd decided their futures and whom they would marry on the day he'd acquired them, and never seriously considered the girls since, aside from that kidnapping attempt. In his mind they simply weren't deserving of any more attention than that.

Like most purebloods Lucius had married to fulfill the need to sire an heir to his family name, then did so remotely, via magic. It was an arranged marriage and, while his wife was well bred, she was weak willed and useless. The boy was little better, and the girls didn't matter in the slightest. He graced this family with his presence only at dinner and then only as often as he could stomach them. But the bitch had an annoying tendency to act out like this in futile attempts to try to gain his affections.

Angrily, Lucius transfigured them all back to the forms of male athletes and virile animals he found so pleasing. Honestly, couldn't that infernal woman take a hint? He stormed off to his office, his good mood from a day of subverting the Ministry ruined. But he did not dwell on this annoyance for long, however. He had plenty of plots to occupy his attention.

Hermione Tina skipped down the steps, once he was safely gone, and placed a headset on one of the statues. "Here," she whispered, as she put it on a now-male carving. "I know from the time I was petrified that you can still hear some of what goes on around you. So I programmed this Wizarding Wireless recorder to play all of my favorite showtunes in a never-ending loop!"

Then she attached it with a permanent sticking charm.

Ever-careful, she Obliviated that statue of that admission, before skipping off, the headset blaring to a single audience behind her, "... there's so much that we share that it's time we're aware it's a small world after all..."

Shortly after, Lucius became aware that by refusing to rise to her little hint he must have finally offended Narcissa enough to get the bitch off his back for a while, as ever after that she began avoiding him around the estate at every opportunity. He knew she hadn't left, the wards would've alerted him, and every time he asked what she was doing the house elves would reply that she was playing with the children, so it was just peevishness on her part, trying to punish him by granting that which he'd always wanted of her: her absence.

Well, he certainly wasn't about to disabuse her of the notion that he was suffering for lack of her, when in actuality he'd have paid her to leave him alone. He had more important things to be attending to in any case. The war for pureblood supremacy had taken a disturbing turn for the worse, and his master needed more successes to counterbalance that.

Lucius would, however, have one statue moved to the basement, annoyed at the noise.

OoOoO

Hermione Jane was humming happily, busy at her chosen calling.

She'd just had her subjects complete their second end-of-experiment exams, and as the third set of tests came in it pretty much proved that those muggle acclimation kit candies did exactly what they said they did - no more, no less. They neither added nor removed any knowledge of muggle fashion sense or culture, which had been the big scare, and the little magic candies didn't seem to addle the brain either.

She'd been worried, especially over how Dumbledore guzzled lemon drops, and wondered if there was any connection. But it seemed not.

The first tests had set the baseline, what these girls knew without those candies. A second had tested those results a week later. Now this third follow up test a week after that, to see if the results were stable and no added side effects cropped up, provided clear evidence it should be safe to use these on herself and her sisters, because if the magic could stay stable that long there wasn't anything to be concerned about. In magic, things like this tended either to go bad right away or not at all. So the third set of tests was almost entirely paranoia on her part.

The muggle acclimation candies were safe.

Although there came some unexpected benefits, most of that was stuff she felt sure the halfblood who'd been explaining them to her simply left out of his short descriptions. The 'cook and prepare walrus and reindeer' candy had not only covered roasting, preserving and salting the meat, that was cooking, but also tanning and sewing the leather into garments and tools. Apparently that was counted as preparing.

Leatherworking was an *extremely* useful skill all on its own. Already she could think of a half dozen things she could do with that ability: custom tailor her own protective gear so it fit her body better, add features like secret inner pockets and so on she didn't want any shop keeper knowing about, putting covers on important books, and so on.

Hermione also had a frugal side, and given a supply of material (like the stash of dragonhide in the Malfoy basement) making things for yourself was often cheaper than buying them, to say nothing of the fact that skills improved with practice and the more she did the better she could eventually become.

Actually, these skills came VERY good to start with! The skills had to have been gathered from someone quite knowledgeable to be as complete as they were, and whoever it was they had been copied from had to have been far more competent than the average wizard, because the abilities were quite solid and flexible - the sort of thing you'd expect from experts, people who had been doing this their entire lives.

Hermione could easily imagine wizards having crept up on unsuspecting muggles to steal these skills, just like Lockhart had done to wizards for their memories for his stories. And being arrogant, the wizards would have only chosen the best they knew of to steal from.

Of course, there were only so many expert walrus cookers in the world, and that number had been shrinking for centuries, so Jane rather suspected that whoever made the candies had done the dirty deed long ago and was somehow copying an original set of stolen skills into mass produced candy as often as they liked. She had no idea HOW it was done specifically, but her suspicions as to the broad outline of the process were rather accurate.

Anyway, Hermione was VERY pleased with the skills. While walrus and reindeer were not exactly common food animals nowadays, the basic principles of how to cook and prepare different kinds meat were not exactly so far apart that one couldn't learn new types, and the added leatherworking ability came as an unexpected yet VERY welcome bonus!

Also, she'd forgotten how backward wizarding culture was. Cooking was still very much a girl's job over there, when it wasn't the house elf's responsibility. So the 'cook and prepare' skill candy was the girl side of a two-candy set. They'd never offered her the male one, but it was on how to track, catch, domesticate, and train reindeer. And she'd seen no reason not to acquire that one when she'd seen it on her shopping trips, and test it as well.

After all, that same principle of adaptation did apply. For if you knew how to domesticate and train reindeer you already had the vital basics covered for domesticating and training any animal, all that were lacking was specifics, and those could be read about!

And where the female skill candy came with leatherworking as an aside, the male one also came with sled driving. Which, Hermione couldn't say she could ever see a use for that, but it was nice to have all the same.

Maybe it would help her get her driver's license later on?

The 'Walrus and Reindeer' set wasn't the only one to have a male and a female offering, either. That other cooking one... well, to pause and stop for a moment, that cooking one was all about Scandinavian Pastry Cooking, and she'd been AMAZED!! She'd never seen so many cakes, pies and pastries anyplace in her LIFE!! Not even in bakeries or candy shops! Those Scandinavians sure knew how to throw a party! And the sheer variety of treats they had come up with to bake during holidays and other occasions simply blew her mind! You'd be eating leftovers for a *week*! And they all looked so yummy she didn't think she would object in the slightest.

Anyway, the Pastry Chef one also had a male counterpart in Woodworking, and once more she'd been amazed when one of her classmates simply carved a working wooden cuckoo clock, complete with so much added detail that it was like looking at wooden lace! It was like one of those storybook houses that had every part decorated to an amazing degree, and was breathtakingly amazing completely without considering the mechanical clockwork inside or the puppets that came out to perform on the hour!

That ability to shape wood so intricately HAD to have tons of utility!

Those were the biggest surprises. The ability to play accordion and alpenhorn, ski and ice skate went all pretty much as advertised. The ability to identify nonmagical plants seemed to focus entirely on ones found in northern Europe about fifty years ago. So it was a little out of date, but not terribly. The one on Lapidary (the making of jewelry), must have been taken from the Swiss because it included the ability to make accurate watches as well as other highly detail oriented work.

No wonder that one was unpopular among wizards!

The last two surprises, while not as big as the first ones, had one good and one bad. The good one came as quite a shock to her. Hermione couldn't picture anything more useless than Bowling Ball Stacking, although she'd given that candy to a student all the same, just to see. And what a result it had!

Those STUPID wizards! Stacking bowling balls was the *least* of all the skills that candy included! It was all on sleight of hand and STAGE MAGIC!!

She could almost see a spark of genius in the wizard who'd made these - thinking that if he were to get caught by muggles doing some magic, rather than obliviate their poor minds, doing some stage tricks that any muggle could learn to convince them he was a MUGGLE sort of magician! The guys wearing top hats doing acts in front of audiences, cutting show girls in half and dozens of other things involving trickery and deceit, and No Real Magic!

That would have been a BRILLIANT cover! You just saw me summon something to my hand? Well, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat! Most muggles were skeptics at heart, do one or two lame tricks and get caught at it, and they'd assume ALL of the things you did were like that! They could cover So Much real stuff up by pretending to be fakes!!

You didn't even have to get caught, just do tricks they knew and were familiar with. Ask them to pick a card, or pull a string of handkerchiefs out of their ear. They'd seen all those tricks done before, and were thoroughly jaded to them, so they'd assume all you did was along those same lines.

Well executed, with an excuse like that you'd hardly need to obliviate anyone!

That wizards on the whole did not take that lozenge as part of their regular education was criminal. At least for the ones who had to have any sort of normal dealings with muggles it ought to have been required!

It had amazing possibilities!

The bad shock was that the muggle primary education candy that she'd placed so much hope on for her uneducated fellow St Trinian's students turned out to be something of a disappointment. Not only was the material fifty years out of date (although she'd somewhat expected that), but it left out math and language skills entirely.

You'd never pass any modern test without either of those. Although it did surprise her in how complete the other aspects of the education were. Being fifty years out of date, it did not consider World War Two history, back then that was current events. And so the history portion dealt with entirely different things, and Hermione had never realized before how much of her own education had been focused on the comparatively recent past. I mean, on one hand it was understandable, the second world war shaped the world we now lived in, but despite all of her reading she'd never truly been introduced to just how much else there was to cover in history, and this candy got to some of that.

It was actually making her quite eager to eat one to find out some of those things. Also, she never would have guessed how much the curriculum had drifted from covering material and learning how to think over to the indoctrination and obedience it was now. But the girl who'd taken that candy had gotten a surprising amount of knowledge, and now knew more about some things, art and geography, how to measure carefully and the like, than Hermione did! And Hermione KNEW how hard she'd worked to expand her education!

That only made her doubly sure to be eating one of those for herself, and soon!

But she was curious about the lack of language and math skills. She knew Ann had some time, so called her up to talk about the subject.

"Well," Ann huffed. "I'm hardly surprised. If you'd only think about it, the muggle relations team mentioned something called Language Lozenges when they were telling us what our muggle acclimation kits were and contained. So I thought I'd look it up. I did, and just about every world language is available in candy form, including English. So I thought that would be how they'd cover at least the language portion of those studies."

Jane was nodding, then pursed her lips in thought, "You're right, that does make sense."

Ann narrowed her eyes at her sister. "What are you planning?"

Jane shrugged. "Nothing much, or nothing firm at any rate. But you know, these girls have no chance of obtaining a decent education on their mother tongue any *other* way, so why not buy them some lozenges on English? Besides, I was already wondering about giving in to the urge to buy them capsules on French. This way at least they'd have two courses no one would flunk on."

Ann's face filled with outrage. "Wacky Jackie!! You are NOT just going to evolve those girls from common thugs, into amoral SOBS with high skills and knowledge! The *last* thing we need is to add a bunch of Kingpins to the rest of our problems! They need morals and direction or they'll just use whatever skills you give them to cause more of the same problems we're dealing with now!"

"Okay!" Jane winced, flinching at her double's tone. "You're right! I wasn't thinking!"

"Clearly not," Ann huffed indignantly, then frowned. "Oh, look, I have chemistry class to go to. But you and I are *not* done with this conversation!"

Jane sighed as she closed the connection. Ann was right. The last thing they needed was to create a population of super-criminals running about complicating everything. But how do you describe having just gotten caught up in helping people and lost track of where you were and what you were doing?

She couldn't just leave people to die, and that had launched her into crisis mode fixing things. Hermione Jane had been picking up more of trauma medicine than she'd ever expected to know, more than she'd even thought existed! Only now she could understand Harry always being willing to rush off and be the hero. Saving people had gotten addictive.

Now she felt doubly guilty over chiding him for having 'a saving people thing'. In the first place, you don't say that to someone because it discourages him from saving people, and she and all the people she knew needed saving from something only he could save them from. And in the second place, now she'd gotten it too.

She felt like a real heroine acting as Chief Medical Officer of St Trinian's. It was something at which she excelled, and they truly needed her! On top of all of the blunt force trauma from hockey sticks, there were injuries from swords, halberds, maces, spears and battle axes, not to forget the ever-popular gunshot wounds.

She'd gotten a real sense of value out of making people get better from those things. But Hermione had no sooner hung up on her sister and begun feeling guilty when a girl was brought in with a ruptured spleen, and Hermione knew none of her spells would address the problem. Nor would ambulances come to St. Trinian's after so many ambushes where the paramedics were assaulted and their cars, equipment and drugs stolen, so there was no way to transfer her to a major hospital for surgery.

Hermione didn't even think, just launched into action. It being the only way to save the girl's life, she whipped out her cauldron and began to autocratically order the students around her to bring her some eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog.

Shakespeare couldn't have *not* known about the magical world, at least a little bit, seeing as how he'd gotten half the recipe to one of the most powerful healing potions in existence right in that play of his. The other half he hadn't stated, but it was all readily available to her.

In forty minutes, the girl who had been dying in agony was up and about, feeling fine and ready to go play.

That was when Hermione's wits returned to her, dropping out of crisis mode to look at all of the stunned faces around her.

"We knew, you know," Rachel told her, offering sympathy.

Her cousin Kate added, "It's all over school, you being a witch. Has been for ages."

"We didn't think that kind of thing existed, but..." Rachel shrugged at her helplessly.

Kim Novak stopped sucking on the ends of her hair. "It's kind of obvious when you go about chanting spells in Latin, pulling vials of bubbling froth out of your sleeves, and waving your wand when you don't think anyone's looking to affect your cures. Most of those girls have been injured before, and know they shouldn't have gotten better as fast as they did."

Kim now leaned forward eagerly. "Now, tell me, it's to resolve a bet. Have you really got a pointed hat and broom, or do the tales make those up?"

"And have you got a cat, and is it black?" Kate now piped up eagerly.

"You've got money riding on this?" Jane found her worldview shattering. She'd been so careful!

"Of course!" was the answer she was given.

"Ever since that fight on the bus, when you fought off those evil witches with bolts of light," Kim bragged. "Some may have forgotten, but I sure didn't."

They were also criminals, and criminals spied on things, hoping to gain information that could be used to their advantage. Of course they lied about it, but it was pretty hard to miss her conducting experiments, giving those other girls skills.

Jane looked guilty, thinking back, but answered honestly. "Well, the hat was part of our school supplies, only nobody I know ever wears them. But I've still got mine at home in my closet. And we have got brooms, only I'm pants at riding them and barely made it through my first flying lesson; although my sisters and I recently decided they were too useful *not* to know and so had some catch-up practice scheduled, so yes. I do own a broom. And my cat was ginger and sort of squash-faced, but I lost him a while ago."

Well, left behind fifteen years in the future, but they didn't need to know that.

The bushy-haired girl noticed that Rachel was making notes for the school newspaper, and her lips grew firm. "Now, just so you know, it's illegal for non-magical people to know about the magical world. We prefer being myths, to be honest. It causes less hassle. And if the Ministry of Magic discovers you've found me out they'll be quite cross and come out and fix all of your memories so you don't recall a thing!"

"You mean *you* won't get in trouble?" Kim was nonplused, having been sure she'd had blackmail material over the witch.

"Not at all." Hermione shook her head. "Oh, they'll give me a fine for violating the Statute of Secrecy, but that's only seven sickles per muggle, that's you non-magical types, up to a maximum of five galleons, that's a coin we use for currency. And that amount hasn't changed in almost four hundred years, so it's about as much as you'd spend on a good lunch today. You, on the other hand, get to have your memories erased. They're quite good at it. They only rarely leave people in a vegetative state - although I saw that happen once."

Hermione finished quite smugly, thinking back on Lockhart.

Her three friends were suddenly huddled, terrified. But Hermione's eyes got drawn up to the door opening and Sharon Scott, the St Trinian's Head Girl, standing in the doorway to the clinic, arms folded, leaning against the frame to ask, "How will they find out?"

The look on the girls face was a direct challenge, asking, 'Will *you* tell them?'

Hermione's mind was abuzz, wondering how the girl knew what their conversation had been, until Rachel pulled an old style PA microphone out from under a pillow she had hidden on the bed they'd all been using as a bench. She glanced up at the speaker and saw that volume here in the nurse's office had been shut off, and with how loud and rowdy the school was generally she'd never noticed.

Jane raised her chin in response to that challenge. "Honestly? I don't know. I know they track wand magic. That's why I use an illegal, unregistered wand, and only use it sparingly or not at all when I can avoid it. I also know they have underaged magic detectors, but I'm also not familiar with how those work, and that might just be traces put on wands sold to school age children like me, which is again why I avoid wand magic as much as possible."

Those statements seemed to relax the Head Girl, who released her hold on the pistol grip she'd been hiding under her crossed arms, letting her jacket fall to cover the holster as she smirked, taunting, "So, what are you hiding from, little witch?"

Not even bothering to correct her deduction, which was mostly accurate in any case, Jane supplied, "Right now there is a war going on in the magical world. The old-line purebloods, people who have been magical for countless generations, have decided to purge the world of first generation witches like me, and have gone on killing sprees. Dumbledore, the supposed 'Leader of the Light' just got revealed as a pureblood sympathizer, and the fate of being caught by the bad witches and wizards is almost too terrible to imagine."

Sharon stood up straighter, gazing down on the young witch. "So those people attacking our bus on the way in..?"

"Were wearing Death Eater costumes, so on the pureblood side," Hermione confirmed.

"They were after you?" Kate breathed in awe.

"No, that was a random raid." Jane disagreed heartily, and so genuinely that although she didn't know she'd been about to be blamed for that attack, she dodged that bullet nicely. "Purebloods hate anyone nonmagical, and use you as... well, like animals. They hold parties where they torture people like you or me for fun. Killing people like us is a sport, although I would be viewed as potentially dangerous, so treated with some degree of caution. You, on the other hand... well, it's best not to go there. All of the vampires and werewolves and giants and things are on the pureblood side, at the moment. So that makes things worse."

"All those things are real?" Rachel wondered, wide-eyed.

Hermione nodded. "Oh yes! Although I knew a werewolf once who wasn't so bad. Once he transformed, however, he still tried to kill me. But the Dark Lord has to keep his vampires fed, and that means human victims, and nonmagical types are easy to catch, so they use them like cattle. But that's not the worst of it. He has something called Dementors on his side, and those are like the ring-wraiths out of Lord of the Rings. They can suck your soul out, and are truly quite miserable to be around. They're used as worse than a death sentence in our world, and nonmagical types can't even see them. Luckily no one is using dragons... well, yet, at any rate. Although I suppose it's possible one side will start."

She scowled, thinking over the possibilities.

Sharon, the head girl, tilted her head to look at Hermione. "So what's to stop somebody from putting a bullet between the eyes of this dark lord?"

"Two things," Jane answered honestly, still absently considering the dragon conundrum. "Anti-bullet shields have been around since the Battle of Agincourt, and most people who deal with muggles wear some sort of device that has one constantly on. You could empty a machinegun on him and it wouldn't even stir his hair. Also, worse than the first problem is that the man is a liche - he's spent some time with dark rituals cutting his soul into little bits and hiding them all over, and so long as even one of those are around he can't truly die. If you got lucky you could destroy his current body, but he'd just possess one or make himself another. Besides, the boy who is destined to defeat him only got born at the end of July. So we have a little while to wait before this war can be resolved in our favor."

Although Hermione didn't notice, still thinking about dragons, she'd managed to shock and impress all of the girls around her.

Sharon Scott pulled out a chair and sat down on it, leaning forward to address the much smaller girl, "Okay, little witch. How do we defend ourselves? Or do you need to do it for us? And, if so, what do you need?"

In a school like St Trinian's, you don't get to be Head Girl without becoming VERY predatory, and people like that don't like being prey. The Head Girl had been willing to kill Hermione if she was a stoolie, an informer, but she'd passed that test without even being aware she was under it. Instead, she'd accidentally convinced the girl she was just like the rest of them - a girl on the run from something, with authority that was out to get her.

That made her one of them, just as much so as any of the other girls of St Trinian's. That put them on common ground - she was somebody they could understand and work with. Or so they believed.

Also the PA speakers had been running the whole time, and the school had gotten very quiet. Hermione had never seen the girls of St Trinian's facing an outside challenge. But it was a scary concept that had already retired more than one police chief.

The "I'm out for Number One" impulse so common to criminals was previously oriented in as many different directions as there were girls. Thus creating a more or less self-canceling chaos. Now it had a common purpose, a common foe, and that got those girls oriented the same way and united in facing the same challenges like probably nothing else could.

Working together towards a purpose, the girls of St Trinian's were frightening.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

And the plot thickens. I have to admit, Mr Stibbons was my favorite part of this chapter. 


	10. Chapter 10

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Ten

by Skysaber

OoOoO

Hermione Jane felt like she was being carried along by an avalanche. Traffic was moving everywhere about the school, girls carrying wooden stakes, crosses or even silver bullets. There were even glasses of water being put unattended in every room, for a statement she'd made that water would freeze in a dementor's presence.

It was amazing, but on that off-the-cuff observation alone, the girls here had come up with a completely muggle Dementor Detector - if the water froze, beware of invisible wraiths.

However, just when Hermione Jane started feeling she had a handle on the dangers and trials of St. Trinians, an older girl in the hall came up to her, knocked her down, then shot her five times in the chest with a heavy caliber pistol.

It felt like getting kicked by a hippogriff, over and over. Yet rather than concern for her well-being, girls around her just continued on with what they were doing like it was all ordinary and accepted behavior.

"Stop that!" she yelled, covering her chest with her arms to try to soothe the bruises, noting that the girl standing above her was calmly reloading.

The fifth former simply chambered a round and started to take aim on her once again. "I thought you said you witches had charms to stop bullets. So far I'm not impressed."

"That's because I haven't GOT one!" Jane snapped back. "Do you think they teach spells that useful to kids my age? Not if they can help it! And I haven't been able to work around the restrictions yet!"

The older girl raised her pistol, yet remained in a ready stance. Shifting her cigar to the other side of her mouth without touching it with her hands, she asked, "So how come you're not dead?"

"I'm wearing best dragonhide," Jane answered without thinking, starting to gingerly rise up off the floor. "A sure defense against most weapons and spells."

THAT caught general interest, and traffic in the hall stopped to look at Hermione picking a bit of splashed lead off of her front, the former bullet as thin as a leaf and curved like a mushroom cap, then shaking off four others. The spent rounds fell with a tinkle at her feet while she absently fingered the five holes in her school uniform baring the dragonhide beneath, not really paying attention to her sudden audience.

The older girl kicked her down again. "Yeah?" she grinned. Then, holstering her pistol, she began to reach down for Hermione's buttons. "Well, let's see if that magic vest you've got can fit an older girl like me."

Realizing she was about to be robbed, Hermione apparated out of there at once.

OoOoO

At that point even Hermione Jane was willing to call the St Trinians experiment a disaster and give it up as a bad deal. She moved over to join Ann at Cheltenham Ladies College and dove into her studies, determined to forget the bad experience and make up for the lost time.

That resolve would probably have lasted forever unchallenged. However, a week later a party of about thirty St Trinians girls showed up on the Cheltenham campus. Hermione Jane looked up from where she was having lunch with her sister and their friends, having heard a disturbance, only to see the crowd of ruffians approaching her and her sister - two of the Cheltenham campus monitors stuffed awkwardly into garbage cans from having tried to stop this intrusion. Out of the corner of her eye Jane noted Sharon Scott, the St Trinians Head Girl, in the lead.

One of the St Trinians girls in the back was carrying a bazooka.

Their Cheltenham friends melted away like rabbits on sighting hungry wolves as the rough crowd approached.

Despite several panicked looks from her sister, Hermione Jane calmly continued with her lunch as they approached, and the crowd of hooligans came to a halt on the other side of her table. Sharon Scott sat down opposite her, snagged one of her coffee cakes, tore off a chunk and started to eat, speaking with her mouth full, "Those guys in the funky uniforms made an attack on one of our outings the other day, kidnapping some St Trinians girls. Now its against our policy to allow attacks on us by outsiders to go unanswered, but that was about the time we realized we'd lost our information source."

Standing right behind her, one of the sixth formers hefted her assault rifle and stated, "The magical world is coming after us, so we need to know more about it, to strike back."

Stealing a milkshake, Sharon Scott took a long pull on it, and told the Hermiones, "So a few of our geeks hacked out your location from school records, and here we are to fetch you cause we need a native guide to the magical world if we're to get our own back." She put the milkshake down to lean forward over crossed arms. "So, Granger, we can either reveal your secrets, or you'll help us."

"My name is Malfoy." Jane said without rising up from her seat at the lunch table. Bringing her eyes to bear on the St Trinians Head Girl, she declared, "You recall those purebloods I told you about? Well, I've been adopted into one of their leading families. Sure, it means being in an arranged marriage to an inbred toad some years down the line, but at least he'll be a wealthy toad. Also, I'm on the winning side now. I have no need to hide."

"Great," Sharon Scott was unperturbed. "So you have inside information on how to get our girls back."

Jane blinked. That was true. She cocked her head. "Why would I want to?"

"GAH!" Hermione Ann stopped trying to be subtle about motioning for her twin's attention and hauled down on her ear to whisper, "Do you know of anyone ELSE willing to take the fight to the bad wizards?"

Jane stopped and pondered that. No, she couldn't. The Death Eaters rampaged more or less unresisted throughout Britain. The muggles mostly couldn't do anything about them, and the magical world mostly wouldn't. True, there were small groups like James Potter and his friends, but she really didn't know if they were doing anything. That's not the sort of information that found itself in the rigidly censored magical newspaper, and they hadn't had a letter from him in a while.

Ann started motioning for her to accept the deal.

Jane thought about it, and she had a point. The St Trinians girls were capable of causing mass destruction, and all she really had to do was tell them where to go, sort of like a fire and forget missile.

But she'd hadn't attended weeks of that school for nothing. Hermione Jane calmly folded her arms upon the table and leaned forward, meeting the Head Girl's eyes. "Alright. The subject is now open for negotiations. What's in it for me?"

Sharon snapped her fingers, and the crowd behind her brought forward a girl trussed up in ropes, leaning her backwards over the table and raising a halberd above her neck. "How about we open the bidding with the head of the girl who offended you?"

Hermione Ann blinked in shock.

"Don't say they aren't in earnest, or don't mean it, because they are, and they do," Jane instructed her shocked sister. She sighed. "Alright, that's a good start. But if I take her head I'll take it live and still attached to the rest of her."

The glinting halberd withdrew.

"Out of curiosity, why?" Sharon swiped another coffee cake.

"I believe that's privileged information," Jane returned smoothly. In truth, saving the life of a person, at cost to yourself, when you hadn't put them in danger had magical power that a person could use to get the subject to do any one thing, and the Malfoy family had rites and rituals you could use to turn a Life Debt into all sorts of things. You could even turn a person into a House Elf, if you were so inclined. Although, truly, she was thinking of other uses.

And, by everything she knew of magic, this qualified as a Life Debt. Jane hadn't done anything with the intent of getting the older girl to shove her down or shoot her, or try to rob her. Yet that act had placed the girl's life in jeopardy. And forgiving her of a robbery/murder attempt and sparing her execution counted as a cost, actually. It was very well documented.

The Head Girl shrugged. "If that's the way you like it. Didn't know you were in to causing pain, but we've got people who could show you the ropes, if you know what I mean."

"I'll take it under advisement, but don't believe I'll be interested," Jane told her coolly.

Negotiations took a surprisingly short amount of time. None of the St Trinians girls had any wealth of any kind to offer, nor did she particularly want any favors, so she'd settled for fifty bottom swats owed to her by each girl fourth year and below, as they didn't truly have anything else to offer, and she was beginning to have ideas on how to use those.

Seeing as how it didn't cost her anything, Sharon Scott had agreed to those terms instantly.

"Why did you..?" Ann began after the St Trinians girls had left, leaving the mummified fifth former lying at Jane's feet still bound in ropes.

Jane cut her sister off. "Did you see how callously they offered her up? That could have been me bent backwards over that table, if I'd been the one to offend someone whose help they needed!" Jane hissed. "No, if I'm going to go back there, or have any dealings with them at all, I need a bodyguard who understands the dangers I'll be facing. And guess what? She's IT! I can use the Life Debt she now owes me to put her through a rite that will make her my devoted little lackey. I don't like it, but I'll need her unswerving loyalty, and this may well be the only way to get something like that from a person like her!"

Ann's eyes were round and yet she mastered herself quickly, to ask, "Why only her?"

Jane paused, levitating the bound girl, to listen to her sister before she popped out.

Ann gathered herself quickly to suggest, "I mean, any *one* bodyguard wouldn't do much to save you from a whole school load of enemies. And they've already proven they can find you out here, so running from them is not a good option. But if they are a threat, why should they have numbers on their side? How many lives have you saved as the Chief Medical Officer of that school?"

"Loads," Jane whispered, now surprised herself. If anything, the St Trinians girls had gone MORE overboard on the liquor and hard drugs since she'd been there with the sobriety charms and life-saving medical spells. At least until the drugs had run out.

Normally, in the magical world anyway, life debts didn't apply to healing others. Healers and aurors were paid to do their work, which short-circuited the whole life debt deal, which was why she hadn't thought to apply it to her case.

But she'd never been paid so much as a copper penny for doing her work as the Chief Medical Officer of St Trinians. Even her uniform was something she'd had to cobble together herself.

A good half of that school could well have died of overdose if she hadn't been there to keep curing them - and that HAD had a cost to her! Being outed as a witch was a very high cost indeed, by current magical standards.

So, currently, about half the school owed her life debts.

Hmm, that had intriguing possibilities.

On a whim, checking back in on the St Trinians infirmary revealed a week's backlog of injured and slowly dying girls. She even had to chase off a healthy one that had been about to set off a crate of dynamite between the heels of one of those slowly dying from a gut wound, gleefully setting the fuse while the poor injured girl watched her helplessly.

Raise those who owed her life debts by another thirty, as no one in there could've survived that bomb.

While she was there Kim Novak and Rachel Davis entered the nursery looking for Hermione Jane, having heard from the recently-healed students issuing forth that she was back. Entering, they saw her back was to them, with a baby cradled in her arms, and she was singing.

"Hush little baby, don't you cry  
Momma's gunna bring you a butterfly..."

The two blondes stared at each other, each mouthing 'Momma?'

Tuning back into Hermione Jane, who was still singing, they heard:

"...Momma's gonna bring you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird won't sing,  
Momma's gunna bring you a diamond ring...

Forgetting what they'd originally come in for, the two girls backed out the way they came. Seeking out Sharon Scott, the Head Girl, they told her, "You know how they say you aren't truly a St Trinians girl until you've gotten pregnant, killed a man, drunk ten shots at one sitting, ran a scam or broke the house gambling?"

Sharon turned to the first-formers in her all-too-composed way. "Yes. As I recall your friend Hermione came close to fulfilling every requirement on her first day."

"You can drop the 'came close'," Kim told her in all seriousness.

Rachel nodded alongside her. "Yeah. Turns out she'd already delivered her kid before the first day of school. We just caught her now in the creche singing to her baby. So she really is the second first-former in the school's history to get every category on her first day."

Accepting this information with her usual cool, the Head Girl sauntered off.

From the other girls listening to this conversation, it was all over the school in an hour that Hermione Jane already had a child. Not that they cared of course. Most of the senior girls there had already been pregnant once or twice, and would never look at their child again after it was born, leaving it to the orphanages. Taking care of a baby was not a common part of their make-up. They were too selfish.

That was actually a big part of why the school got convinced so easily that anyone taking the time out to sing to a baby had to be its mother. Who else would care?

Jane of course heard the news about her supposedly being a mother. Actually she heard it in the form of congratulations on having achieved the slot of second girl to ever qualify as a St. Trinians girl in every category on her first day, which confused her quite a bit until the person elaborated that Jane had been caught singing to her child.

That led to Jane standing in the nursery considering the children there very hard. None of these babies were going to be cared for. Their mothers viewed them as a nuisance, and they would be shipped off to Social Services before long. A big batch of babies left here for there every year, just like someone carting off the garbage. Nobody there would want to adopt them because of the extensive damage caused to them in the womb by their drug-using, constantly drunk mothers.

None of these innocent children had any hope for a future at all.

That hurt.

But it wasn't... Jane stopped herself with a burst of inspiration. The magic world had the spells and potions to correct the otherwise incurable long-term damage from the drug and alcohol abuse in the womb. Social Services wouldn't care, as they viewed any shipment of newborns out of St. Trinians as automatically damaged in the worst of all possible ways, and rightly so in most cases. So even if she cured them, they still wouldn't have any future.

Unless she gave them one.

Hermione hooked up a laptop the geeks here at school had been teaching her how to use. She needed someplace big. Then, because her allowance was not without limits, hopefully also cheap, and with land. Something like a manor would be ideal, but those didn't usually...

No, she knew exactly how to find cheap manor houses. She began looking up immediately the previous campuses of St. Trinians. Every year they moved to a new one, and they didn't always burn them down behind them. Some were just on the verge of collapsing out of accumulated structural damage or evacuated in fear of unexploded bombs - both of which were fairly easy to handle with the right sort of charms.

Property values went down the toilet whenever St. Trinians relocated their school to an area, and it took years to recover. It turned out she could buy entire towns for a song.

That would cover space. Now she needed minders.

Some she could hire, but that made it no better than an orphanage if she used only hired help. What she really needed, what these children deserved, were parents, or the closest she could get to them.

Actually, what this inevitably brought to mind was the child dealer that sold her and her sister to the Malfoys. The purebloods were on the lookout to acquire more children, so long as they didn't have to have them themselves. The only wrinkle there was to be marketable the kids had to possess proven magical abilities. Everything else would be taken care of by the adoption rituals.

Hermione sat up, stunned over her next thought.

Magic was genetic, right? Passed down in families over generations?

Those magical adoption rituals overwrote one's genes with the new parents, right?

So who was to say a magical adoption COULDN'T give a child magic? If you chose the right parents, they'd pass on the right genes, wouldn't they? So that would mean the child would have the potential for magic imbued just the same as it changed their hair color, right? It was all determined by genetics, anyway, and those rituals overwrote the old genes with new family information. So if those new parents were magical...

...there was really no reason to suspect that it wouldn't give children magical abilities!

OoOoO

A house elf stopped Hermione Tina on her way up the stairs to Lucius' office with Mr Stibbons in her hands, the snake wearing a bowler and tie now, flicking his tongue when the elf pulled her to a halt (with a carefully averted face). "Master no have time to play with you."

"Awww!"

Thinking about it, Tina bounced in place, turning about to head down stairs. "Well, I can always come back to play later."

The house elf forcibly gave her a nudge in the direction of the stairs. "Master say he no have time to play ever. Master say so long as mistress Cissy is playing time with children, he no bother. Now leave him alone!"

"Awww!"

Still, Hermione Tina skipped down the stairs giggling, despite this setback full of joy over her recent victory against Narcissa. Even if she'd been thwarted from petrifying Lucius, she'd still had a major win. In fact, her laughter could not be stopped as she recalled her conversation with her sisters earlier.

Even ANN couldn't stop snickering on being told of their adopted mother's fate!

Tina could recall it now, her normally straight-laced sister saying, "Oh, that was just too evil! But you should have used it as an opportunity to brainwash her instead."

"Actually, I wouldn't call that a *missed* opportunity," Jane had mused thoughtfully. "Since she is still down there, there's no reason why we can't start now. If anything, what you've done so far ought to put her in a state of distress, thus more vulnerable to brainwashing."

Tina had only had to think about it half a moment. "You're right. I'll go get some self-help tapes right now!"

"Don't forget some sermons from pastors whose ideals you like." Jane added. "If we're going to try to turn her around, from evil to good, well, religion is the only thing proven able to do that. And we'd best lay a strong foundation to start, if we're to do this at all. Better to aim for one of those churches who actually has a pastor who believes what he preaches."

OoOoO

Dumbledore gazed kindly upon his new crowd of assembled servants. Oh, *they* didn't call themselves that, but it accurately described what they were. He was just careful not to call them that to their faces, lest they expect him to begin paying them.

No. It wouldn't do to have that happen. It would upset the natural order of things. They had to pay *him* for the privilege of carrying out his orders and dying for his cause.

It never occurred to the old wizard to wonder why they died so often. That a total lack of teamwork might have something to do with it never occurred to him. But Hermione could have given him several examples out of the future to demonstrate this.

Several thousand witches and wizards at the Quidditch Cup had faced a half dozen Death Eaters and it was several thousand cases of "What can I do all alone against six deadly opponents?" So the six were able to drive a couple thousand like a flock of dumb sheep.

Wizards don't do teams. They didn't think in those terms. Hermione Jane had thought about it a great deal (as she did all things Defense related) and in the end concluded it was a flaw of their narrow focused imaginations combined with a near total lack of team sports. Sure, there was Quidditch (and Quodpot in America) but those players represented a tiny portion of the magical population. And such a game with such a variety of specialized equipment and minimum magical power restrictions meant the majority of small children couldn't play even a limited version at home. Quidditch at school was more divisive than team-building since the competition also came from within the same school. An American muggle school would have a minimum of two team sports who compete with completely different schools, increasing the number of students who get experience playing on a team, as well as building school unity since the competition is not from within their own number. Wizards were loners. And they lacked the imagination to extrapolate the concept of teamwork from the pathetically few times they were forced to work together.

Even the Order of the Phoenix under Dumbledore was less a team and more a dangerous part-time job with co-workers you hated. Members like Snape and Dung kept them from feeling like their fellow Order members were people they could depend on. The absolute monarchy of Dumbledore told them they were not a team, they were unmarked followers. This was why the original Order was so ineffective. They had been a bunch of individuals loosely connected by a common desire, not a team who knew how to work well together.

In fact, the only teams of people working together seen in the magical world were Quidditch and Death Eaters. And the Death Eaters were far less cohesive than Quidditch teams. Even the Golden Trio and the DA were less teams and more Harry's followers.

This explained why a team of six children fought a dozen Death Eaters to a stand-still. The Death Eaters were used to dealing with 12-to-1 odds, even if there were a thousand 1s standing there together. The slightest amount of teamwork was the most potent defense the Death Eaters had ever seen.

Hermione would go on to add that the Aurors were like Keystone Cops for the most part. Their only demonstrable teamwork was to all do the wrong thing together. During the World Cup, instead of firing stunners at the Death Eaters, they fired them at the fleeing crowd, including foreign nationals.

But that wasn't the only story of the legendary incompetence of their police. England also had that famous court ruling against it, where a man was constantly being attacked in his own home and the police KNEW who was doing it and did nothing. The man's patience finally broke under the abuse and he killed the people when they attacked him again in his own home. The police arrested the man and tossed him in jail for murder. So the aurors really were not acting outside the norm for British law enforcement.

Contrast that with that bully in Texas who was assassinated and everyone claimed credit for it to keep the actual person safe (well, the police also felt that it really wasn't worth the effort and regarded the incident as a necessary homicide).

No, it was no wonder to *her* how Dumbledore's Order composed largely of housewives, thieves and unrepentant murderers had been ineffectual. You can't make a good sword or axe when you try to forge the blade half out of steel and half out of pig manure, and keep insisting the pig manure remain as 'it was making a vital contribution'.

An appalling act of stupidity, but you only had to look at Dumbledore see what he preferred. McGonagall was useful to him, but it was Snape he sheltered, trusted and confided in.

The *reason* he liked them was slightly less obvious, and never shared by Dumbledore to others: Dark Siders were willing to do things that Light Siders weren't. Sometimes you could get by on ignorance, sending a gentle half-giant to do your kidnappings because he trusts you implicitly. Other times, you just had to betray someone by whispering in the Dark Lord's ear, and the only messenger who could do the job properly was Dark himself.

It was all for The Greater Good, in the end.

"And now my friends," Dumbledore raised his hands high and wide as though preaching, all of the while thinking 'saps, the lot of them', "We are privileged this evening to embark together on a great undertaking! Under cover of the recent confusion, a band of vigilantes composed largely of bigoted halfbloods and muggleborns resentful of their lack of high standing have begun calling themselves the Order of The Pheonix, after their desire to see our world go down in flames, to be replaced by one of their own devising. Toward this aim they have begun assassinating purebloods..."

OoOoO

'This was not,' Hermione Jane reflected to herself as she was breaking into the mansion of a Death Eater where a revel was about to be held that evening, leading a following of some two hundred St Trinians girls, nearly the entire population of the school that wasn't already a prisoner inside, 'what I expected of an English educational experience.'

Of course, she had to admit, it was pretty much exactly what she had set out to St Trinians to find. So the blame lay on herself for that one.

The assembled warrior maidens of St Trinians were armed with an assortment of weapons: everything from the traditional hockey sticks and other sports equipment to assault rifles and high yield bombs of home made explosives.

That crate of TNT from this morning had made a reappearance. They were also carrying jerry cans of gasoline in spite of her having told them it wouldn't do any good. She'd even let the St Trinians girls burn her at the stake just to prove how effective a Freezing Flame charm could be. It had tickled. Oddly enough, now Hermione had an insight into why Wendelin the Weird had liked it so much.

Frankly, she could do with being burned at the stake a few more times herself. It was fun.

But back to the invasion at hand.

As proved by Crabbe and Goyle, Death Eaters were not always devilishly clever, evil masterminds. Heck, from what Tina had seen those times there had been guests at family dinners, the majority of the purebloods ranked as barely competent!

That was what caused the few examples like Lucius and Bellatrix to stand out so much. It was also what made Fudge electable, as he wasn't terribly different from the vast bulk of purebloods at large.

Still, a large number of Death Eaters being incompetent nut-jobs made this assault easy, or at least possible. Hermione was no warding expert, or at least not yet, although she could see the value in that job and resolved to become one in the future. She certainly was no curse breaker. So a set of ultra-paranoid, thickly layered, built-up-over generations wards like over the Malfoy home would have stopped this invasion cold.

Luckily, that's not what the St Trinians girls had to face here where the revel was being prepared. It was a manor, purebloods lived there, and there were wards. Those three facts were the only similarities between this place and the Malfoy estate. It was just the difference between trying to break into Norad versus trying to shoplift at the local mini-mart. None of the warding was done to the quality the Malfoys demanded, and half of it conflicted with the other half. Plus, none of the wards were of the same 'last forever, Egyptian tomb curses' level of protection the Malfoys paid for, and what this place had had not been maintained.

You could literally walk an army through the holes in these wards, which was what Hermione Jane was doing. The property gate had multiple layers of nasty, 'blast em' style protections on it, kept current and very deadly, and the anti-apparation and anti-flying wards worked fine, because that's what those inside noticed. But a bunch of muggle girls standing ladders up against the outer wall and climbing on over? If they ever had a protection against such a thing it had worn out and expired long ago.

Which was good, because the sum total of Hermione's curse-breaking skills amounted to a book she'd just acquired on detecting the presence of wards.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

ANYONE who operates completely undetected and unopposed can accomplish great damage WHATEVER the enemy! And the better your information, the greater that damage can be.

Traveling through time gave Hermione great information, and she has been privileged to operate under the radar of the current opposing forces so far. So her achievements to date are completely out of proportion to her ability.

Yes, she is a good witch, but not one so talented as to turn the entire magical world on its head by herself, yet. She's no Dumbledore. And, sadly, inevitably she must lose some of her advantages as circumstances alter to invalidate much of her future knowledge, as well as at some point she's going to get discovered, that's going to make quite a change itself.

Hidden, a submarine can accomplish great destruction. Once discovered, however, it is a target for those things that hunt it. 


	11. Chapter 11

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Eleven

by Skysaber  
aka Lionheart

OoOoO

It turns out riots of violence were exactly what the St Trinians girls were best at; and while Death Eaters thought they were pretty good at them too, they didn't do so well on the receiving end.

Actually, Jane thought as she strangled a man with his own Slytherin tie, watching their tactics, Death Eaters seemed to want to fight the way that sheep dogs did their jobs: bark a few times, get the sheep to run, then chase after, nipping at a few heels.

They were not prepared for up close and personal, in-your-face kind of fighting. They liked to deal with violence a comfortable wand-distance away where they had plenty of time to shield or dodge. Having a hockey stick stuffed up their rectums, or being beaten over the head with chairs or table lamps really seemed to hamper their style.

A remarkable amount of damage was being done that way. So far the Death Eaters had been surprisingly good about shielding from those bullets flying about out of the various assault rifles, pistols, or machineguns in use. But (and this was what was so fascinating to Jane) apparently the real limiter on this activity was most people could only hold up one spell at once. If they tried to send an offensive curse or hex, they had to drop the bullet shield to do it (and promptly get splattered). Whereas those who *didn't* try to send out offensive curses or hexes got bludgeoned to death by the crowd of St Trinians girls rushing at them unopposed.

The equation was a little different for those Death Eaters who carried objects that offered continuous and automatic anti-bullet shields, where those fellows didn't have to worry about their own defense from the clouds of shrapnel going on, or the eleven-year-old marksgirls picking them off. But even those were still getting overcome by sheer weight of numbers.

A very interesting tactical lesson, and she'd picked up the incantation and necessary wand movements for the anti-bullet shield charm as well, so many had used it in front of her.

Oh, and raise the count of those girls who owed her life debts by another thirty, so far. The hexes in use were nasty. The bazookas going off and hails of shrapnel were not doing the unshielded St Trinians girls any good either. Although they did seem used to it when one or more of their number went down with serious fractions of a wooden plank through her face.

This was going to take her forever to clean up after!

Jane was not even aware yet that she could give Madam Pomfrey a run for her money in the trauma medicine department, or that she was still picking up speed. But taking serious chunks of wood out of a girl's face and healing her up was going to take all day!

Of course, the enemy naturally had it far worse.

Death Eaters were hanging by the neck off their own chandeliers, hands tied behind their backs while getting beaten like pinatas by girls wielding hockey sticks, and worse, against them. There was that one crowd over there doing things to a defeated Death Eater with chainsaws that Hermione didn't even want to think about. Chairs and tables were getting thrown through windows, Death Eaters following after (or going through first). The building was already on fire. Some upper class pureblood wife on the upper balcony was getting chased about the manor in a dress that was on fire while St Trinians girls dumped gasoline on her. The family pet had been butchered and gutted and put on to roast in the family fireplace, while the place was already being looted of any valuables, golden candlesticks and the like.

It was, all things considered, a fairly typical day at St Trinians, but far more than these upper crust purebloods seemed equipped to handle.

Hermione was not overly concerned. She'd already used summoning spells into her magic bag during the initial assault to loot all of the *real* valuables: Gringotts account statements, along with the seal used to alter them (she'd already sent off a message using the family owl transferring control to herself. Not elegant, but simple), all of the magic bags or trunks in the house (which would hold all of the real on-hand deposits of coin to speak of), the magic objects: brooms, armor or invisibility cloaks she couldn't stand the thought of falling into the hands of any of these hooligans, as well as all of the books, potions and any spare wands, plus the wardrobes of the various family members (it was appalling to her middle-class background how much the typical pureblood spent on clothes). The money was something she could use to buy those towns where she was planning to raise St Trinians' unwanted babies. The magic was something she wanted kept out of the teenage mothers' irresponsible hands, for fear of the havoc and destruction they'd cause with it!

Not to mention, the carnage and destruction they'd cause with the sort of magic items that could be found in the home of Dark-loving purebloods would draw the attentions of the Ministry of Magic rather quickly, and Hermione didn't want to be caught behind such a huge violation of the Statute of Secrecy. They'd gone well beyond where the five galleon fine stopped being appropriate. She'd probably wind up in Azkaban if any half-competent Legilimancer plucked out of any of these girls minds who'd introduced them to magic.

And that thought gave her shivering horrors. So, no magic for these girls. ESPECIALLY not those items that held up continuous anti-bullet charms!

The actual battle didn't take very long. Death Eaters are unused to people who care nothing for their own casualties and just charge. And during the battle some St Trinians girls had worked out that most spells detonate on the first thing they hit, so had been throwing furniture of all sorts in the way of those hexes and curses.

Now it was just after-battle clean up.

One Death Eater, tied to a chair, was having TNT sticks braided into his hair like they were curlers. Another was bent over the fallen statue of one of his ancestors, tied up with his rump high in the air and a paper archery target pinned to it, while St Trinians girls shot arrows at him from across the dining room.

The ironic thing was that nothing worse was happening to these Death Eaters than they'd planned to do to those girls they'd kidnapped. Sure, the methods had changed, physical beatings instead of Crucio spells, muggle tools instead of hexes and curses, but the pain, degradation, humiliation and death that resulted were the same. So there was an odd sort of justice in the fact that the purebloods were getting what they'd so often dished out to others.

Hermione Jane released the one she'd been strangling into the hands of a crowd of young girls who'd played with their last toys to death. It was not a mercy, as the man went from a relatively clean and painless death to one far more drawn out and humiliating. But that was not her concern, Jane had been doing it just to keep her hands busy while she'd watched the action going on, trying to pick out the details of new spells.

Hmm, the chief Death Eater's family had been drawn out of hiding and was now joining their father in being hung from his own chandelier and beaten. Hermione had no sympathy for the adult children so treated, as they had to be aware of and at least partially complicit in the revel of rape and murder that their father had arranged to hold in their house. But one of the adult daughters had a young baby clutched to her chest.

Hermione intervened before the St Trinians girls could use that baby for a hockey puck. Snatching it up in her arms, she cried, "Do you know how much a magical child this age is WORTH?"

Appealing to their mercy or compassion didn't work, as they didn't have any. But their greed? Oh yeah!

That outcry actually stopped the action across more of the floor than she would've liked. But there was no way of avoiding the question they asked. "Worth? You mean magical kids can be sold?"

"Not legally. Not honestly," she temporized. Then realized she might as well have been talking about the weather in Japan. Neither of those things mattered to these girls. Sighing, she put it more directly, "Let's put it this way, my last contact got herself killed for trafficking in magical children, and I don't have another. But if one could be found..." she paused. No WAY was she going to tell this crowd that a magical baby girl nearly sold for a hundred thousand galleons! They'd denude the countryside of magical families!

"How much?" Asked a fifth-former chewing on a cigar, pausing in the act of sawing a Death Eater in half in a box - without the benefit of stage magic.

"Four or five ounces of gold," Hermione answered, underestimating by about two thousand times what the actual price was, that time she'd been sold to Lucius.

The fifth-former threw open her box, only to proclaim, "Rats! I've already killed this one." Looking up, she asked, "Anyone got one with a penis left?"

There came some disturbed mumbling over the fact that they'd already wiped out the population of male Death Eaters. All that were left of them were a few witches. Hermione felt incredibly awkward and embarrassed when she worked out that meant these girls had been considering raping the magical men just to have magical babies that could be sold!

She collected the wounded and got out of there before anyone could approach her with offers for getting hold of a male wizard for breeding stock, and perhaps cutting her in on a share of the profits.

OoOoO

The Dark Lord had not been pleased when the time of the revel had arrived, and he'd appeared with the bulk of his Death Eaters for the party that was to have raised their spirits and caused them to forget the recent string of defeats, only to find that his followers who'd been arranging the festivities had been destroyed and their manor burnt to the ground.

Voldemort had blamed the Ministry, and taken out his ire on those insiders who ought to have warning him that the aurors had planned on staging a counterattack. No one noticed the missing muggle girls who ought to have been there, although the few lurking in the trees, waiting to ambush the odd magical man, found the odds too great and called off the attack.

Fighting off the spasming pain of a Crucio or two, and coming back in a fury from the site of the destroyed revel, not knowing how narrowly he'd missed being kidnapped himself, Lucius came through the section of the living room between the floo and the stairs where his trio of little girls had been playing with the puppies.

Accosted by one coming up to petted, the man kicked it across the room.

~Wow! Who would've thought that Lucius was the type to kick dogs?~ Tina thought, heartily amused. ~I mean, besides anyone who knows him, that is?~

She watched him step on one of the puppies, breaking the poor thing's back, and her thoughts colored with anger. ~Too bad that wasn't Draco.~

It was then the mother dog committed the ultimate error - it growled at him.

Lucius snapped, blasting the dog into millions of pieces, then slaughtering the puppies in a rage as his fury over the destroyed revel and unjust punishment found an outlet. Tina clung with her sister's clones, diving behind furniture as soon as she saw spells flying.

Suddenly the elderly house elf appeared, wailing amid dead puppies, "The heir is dead!"

This grabbed Lucius' instant attention. "WHAT? What are you talking about? What has happened to Draco? Where is he?"

The orders were barked out with crisp precision and no little amount of venom.

Instead of answer the elderly house elf bent down to scoop up one of the now-dead puppies. "Master has kill the heir!"

A look of confusion crossed the Death Eater's face, before it resolved. He waved his wand and with a "Finite" the spell was over, and his son lay there dead. "Who did this? Tell me, WHO DID THIS?" Spittle actually flew from the man's face.

The bereaved elf answered without looking up or releasing the body. "Mistress Tatiana did this, sir."

From her hiding spot behind the sofa, Tina paled.

It was only the sheer nonsense of that statement that broke the man out of his blind rage. He shook himself, "One of the girls? But, she's not even two."

"Mistress said she was playing a game."

Creeping behind a sculpture, as having more mass to resist spells, Tina winced.

"What game?" The demanding tone was back.

Now the bereaved elf finally looked up. "Mistress call it 'How Long Will It Take The Adults To Notice', sir. House elfses couldn't tell, sir. Mistress said that would be cheating. But game is over now, so elfses can say, sir."

Tina found herself magically pulled from behind the sculpture where she'd been hiding, coming to a stop right before a man who was deep in a killing rage, and she knew from his eyes that the moment she was done answering his questions she would die miserably.

"You," Lucius hissed, his wand pointed at her face. "You did this."

If part of his tone wasn't confusion she would've despaired of her life right there. The man was stronger than she could hope to be in the here and now, with her having a child's body and him being an adult with the full might of the wards backing him.

~Well, I never thought I was safe here. Might as well meet my end as the Gryffindor I am.~ Her chin went up, and she answered boldly, "Yes."

A look of confusion crossed the grief overlaying his hideously angry face. "Tell me why."

She looked at him, then in a burst of inspiration thought of how she might confuse the angry man further. "Dogs reach full maturity in one year. Who wouldn't want that sort of boost for their son?"

Now his confusion grew, but the wand never wavered from its target on the center of her face. "Explain. What are you talking about?" Suddenly suspicion overrode his previous question and his eyes narrowed. The wand, if possible, grew even more threatening, and the anger was back full force. "How?"

Seeing his head lurch toward the body of his son, the second question was obvious, which was a good thing, as she had no idea how to answer the previous one. In fact, a brilliant lie occurred to her, and she smiled disarmingly. "What do you think was done to me?"

She batted her eyelashes at him in a disgusting display.

Lucius nearly lost the wand out of his grip when he realized the conversation he'd been having was with a child not even two years old. "You performed transfiguration, advanced human to animal transfiguration, at your age?"

"Yes," she nodded politely, attempting to pretend she wasn't in any danger.

"And Draco would've gained the same?" This time the wand wavered, slashed to the side to point to little Draco's body.

Hermione felt glad - Lucius was almost feeding her lines! She nodded pleasantly, making up a convincing sounding lie. "Dogs reach full magical and mental maturity in one year, as do babies transfigured into dogs. Once transformed back we have to grow up again. But since our minds and magical cores get to develop twice, once as dogs and once as humans, we get the benefit of those increasing as we grow up twice as well, leaving us significantly smarter and more powerful than normal."

"How extraordinary," Lucius stood up taller, no longer hunched over in a threatening pose. He cocked his head, both dazed and curious, at her, "Any other benefits?"

She shrugged. "I'm told it would be easy for him to become a dog animagus."

"Another useful ability," Lucius mused as if to himself. Nodding, he sheathed his wand. "Very well, do try to warn me next time so I don't make this sort of mistake again."

Hermione Tina watched the man calmly walk away, unable to believe she was alive. So shocked she was that she sputtered, pointing to Draco's body, "But..?"

"Oh, that." Lucius paused to smile at her over the railing of the stairs. "Never mind that. You don't think he's the first heir to die during an attempt to increase our line's power, do you? No, the average is three, and for abilities far less substantial than twice the growth to our magical cores. Much less even than an animagus affinity. Do you know that a person with an affinity for one animal, if they instead choose a different animagus form, can still learn the first? Oh. I can see you didn't. I suggest you look it up in our library. No, I have a wife, I can make another heir. And, well, two animagus forms? This discovery was worth it even without the additional magical growth; and that growth is so precious countless other Malfoys have died seeking the extra power more magic provides. I am young. I can afford to wait a few more years before passing on my name and title. Again, the discovery was worth it."

"Good night, Tatiana."

The man disappeared upstairs, a pleasant smile ghosting across his face.

Tina could hardly pry her jaw up off the floor.

OoOoO

"Is that the list?"

James was, incongruously, wearing a Santa Claus costume as he answered with a grin, "Checked it twice!"

Sirius watched the latest owl wing away while beside them Remus, dressed in a pumpkin headed scarecrow costume, checked off the last name on a very long list: The names of Death Eaters their mysterious correspondent had supplied. They'd checked and double checked it by interrogating captives. Now it was time to strike!

This project had taken every post owl in Hogsmead, but if it returned even a quarter the results they felt it might - it was well worth it!

Sirius turned on his heel, the ears of his pink Easter Bunny costume flapping as he did so. "C'mon, let's get out of here!"

OoOoO

Hermione Ann Granger sang happily to herself as she sealed the envelope and sent off the latest fashion advice article with her post owl. Another would go out by muggle post.

Getting her Cheltenham friends to overlook the St Trinians visit had been easy enough, just saying that one of them had wanted to beat her up for having printed an unflattering article about their school. That had instantly changed her from potential pariah for having anything to do with the St Trinians thugs and bullies, to being something of a Cheltenham star. After all, she had a job writing articles on fashion advice!

You could hardly do anything to be more popular among teenage girls.

Of course, now she was having to spread out and apply some of the same tricks she was learning to writing articles for muggle magazines as well. But with a visit to their office paired with a couple of Confundus charms she was already past the difficult screening process that turned away most. And her standing could hardly be higher among the Cheltenham girls around her. The Jensen family, her first friends here, had already risen higher in status just for associating with her, which was nice because they were all of them nice girls.

Still, the experience could hardly have been more different than her first muggle school life!

Hermione Ann had just grabbed up a notebook and pen, intending to go off and interview one of the girls here who really knew her stuff about makeup and fashion, when Tina arrived in a cheerful mood.

Popping in, the movie star gave her fashion guru sister a peck on the cheek and said, "Two items of news: One, Lucius killed all of the puppies today, including Draco. So we don't have to worry about him any more. Second, in the line of bull I made up trying to save my life I told him that human babies transfigured into puppies grow up twice, so are smarter and magically stronger than other kids. He bought it, and the accompanying line that it had been done to us, which is what I'd told him about how I'd managed the advanced transfiguration on Draco after the elf ratted me out as the one responsible. But after thinking it over Lucius came downstairs to transfigure all of our clones into kittens, thinking if it worked turning small children into dogs, it might work twice if we were also changed into cats. Anyway, I just barely dodged having that done to myself, but with all of our clones being kittens raised by a mother cat over the next six months or so, we don't have to stop in so often to keep up the act anymore, as they don't have to imitate human behavior. Just so you know!"

And with that frustratingly brief announcement, Tina popped off again.

Jane popped in practically the instant after. "Hi! Ann, I'm going to be really busy for a while. Do you think you could be a dear and purchase all of these properties for me? Two are former locations of St Trinians, and that one is the current town. We'll need all three villages complete. Here's the account information. Thanks! Bye."

And with that, Jane popped off in a rush.

Ann found her sisters maddening, sometimes.

OoOoO

Chuckling happily to himself, the frustrations of the day forgotten, Lucius Malfoy had just finished adding the latest breakthrough in magical empowerment techniques to the family grimore that held all of the *real* secrets of the clan, along with his theory that if it worked once to turn his children into puppies, it might work twice by turning them into kittens, when a late batch of mail arrived.

Taking care to replace the grimore in its hidden vault, and reactivating its protections, as his father had drilled into him he must always do the moment he was finished with it (lest delay pile on distraction and he forget and leave it for just anyone to find) the proud man reached happily for his latest owl post, confident in all of the spells and wards that screened his mail for dangerous spells or enchanted objects.

That was why he was so surprised when, on opening the letter, three grenades fell out without their pins and exploded practically in his lap.

Off guard and unshielded, never having even *imagined* that something without magic in his mail could do him harm, Lucius Malfoy followed standard procedure by leaping up and spreading himself over a wide area.

It took three house elves to contain the blaze, but nothing they did could stop the white phosphorous from consuming everything in the master's study, reducing even the bits of the pureblood lord spread all over the walls to ash.

Unhappily for the Dark Lord's schemes, variations on this theme would be repeated in hundreds of Death Eater households that night.

OoOoO

Hermione Jane popped into the St Trinians infirmary with the baby, but had scarcely set it down before she heard a voice from behind her say, "Ah! You're back."

Jane spun around, wand rising up, only to see the St Trinians Headmistress rising from a comfortable seat, where evidently she'd been waiting for a while. Being threatened with a deadly weapon didn't appear to phase her in the least, because the Headmistress came up to address her as casually as you please, "I've been waiting for you, Miss Granger."

Hermione made a sour face. "I didn't register here under that name."

The school administrator was unruffled. "Nevertheless, everyone here knows it. I've been waiting for some time so that I could ask you something. Tell me, do you know the role St Trinians plays in the British educational system? Ah. I can see that, unlike most girls here, you do." She went on without waiting for confirmation, "I am taking advantage of the fact that most of the school is off with the assault force, and will be hours coming back from that, to speak a little bluntly. Do you mind?"

A little bit confused, Hermione shook her head.

The Headmistress seated herself, watching the witch carefully. "To put it bluntly, St Trinians is where the English speaking world sends their rebellious young girls to die."

Hermione felt she probably ought to be shocked by that.

But the matronly woman was already forging on. "There is a certain benefit to society to cull out those who would not abide by its rules. If you would not obey the standards laid down by the rest of the world, you get sent here. And here, as you well know," she gave the girl before her a direct and level stare, "there is little or no control at all. Get enough uncontrolled young girls with no respect for authority together, and an environment of violence naturally results. Left unchecked, that violence claims lives. St Trinians is allowed to exist because it is the opinion of certain parties that society is spared a great deal of trouble if the incurably criminal or corrupt finish each other off early, rather than suffer the resulting damage of if they had survived to pursue criminal careers and interests elsewhere."

The Headmistress had on what seemed to be a completely disingenuous expression. "Ha! All so much poppycock, in my opinion. But those in authority have granted us our remit and a certain leeway of operation, based on that theory. Now I, for one, love these girls and am determined to keep them as healthy and, yes, safe as lies within my power - what little power there is in my position, at any rate, which between the students ignoring me and the lack of respect we have in the rest of the educational system, is not much."

She leaned forward, confiding this last as though it were a great secret. But she forged on before Hermione could formulate a reply. "Which brings us to you, my dear little witch. For weeks now I have been refusing the bulk of transfer requests as we simply haven't had the openings. But we are the drain of the British school system, and we are supposed to take on those girls the rest refuse to handle. So, after not long of this, my superiors who grant us our autonomy looked into why their drain was stopped up, so to speak. My reply that we had a dramatic drop in casualties was not, as you might suppose, well received. A St Trinians girl who survives to graduation is considered something of a menace by the rest of the world, and they like to see as few of them as possible. At any rate, as I have explained to you, we have permission to act out and be rambunctious only so long as the rest of the administration feels we are doing our jobs. So it is my regret to inform you, you have been sacked. You are too noble for St Trinians, and too skilled by half. You never ought to have been sent here in the first place, as you have no outstanding discipline problems against you, and in fact have a marked love for authority. Since those *in* authority can no longer put up with you sparing the lives of your fellow students, you must go."

That Hermione was stunned by this revelation was something the Headmistress was apparently counting on. "Now MI5, who provides us most of our drugs, has offered to wipe the slate clean and give you a fresh start, perhaps with your sister in Cheltenham. The rest of the students shall be told you died in some accident or other that shall be arranged, and things will go back to normal. That is, *if* you are agreeable?"

With the Headmistress leaning forward to gauge her reaction intently, Hermione Jane Granger felt an odd sensation like a gun to her head. Well, no, she'd had that happen enough in regular school incidents by now to know exactly what that felt like, but more of a metaphorical sensation of danger, as if the wrong answer might easily kill her.

And she realized it well might. If this was a murder factory run by the British school system to take care of those they didn't want to grow up, what was one more body? If she was preventing this school from fulfilling its proper function, as the Headmistress said, then who was to say they wouldn't unstop that drain by fair means or foul?

Killing her would actually be the simplest, easiest, most practical solution, in their eyes.

Murder was already on the dance card, so it seemed, and she had enough experience with another school head by the name of Dumbledore to know full well that protestations of love or innocence often hid the exact opposite sort. And she had heard enough lies by now to know that heartfelt confessions like this were often a rug that disguised the pit trap beneath.

There was something here she wasn't hearing.

Carefully, she formulated a reply, ducking her head and blushing deliberately. "Uh, could you wait a few weeks? It's *almost* Halloween, and I have a great many human sacrifices planned," she lied. "After that I'd be glad to get out of your hair."

The Headmistress smiled and reached out, patting her on the cheek. "Good girl." As she stood the Headmistress paused in the door, to say, "Could I convince you to get an early start? We already have enough transfers queued up to cover a good hundred or so going missing. A few dry runs could do you a world of good, I'm sure. Hacking apart a struggling captive is more work than you'd think. People talk about tearing someone's heart out as though there was no work or effort involved! Ha! Shows what they know about it."

The headmistress went on her way chuckling about good times.

~Ok, that was it.~ Hermione Jane decided. ~Things here change NOW!~

OoOoO

Jane's first stop was the Ministry of Magic, the department that handled the Obliviators. "Hello there." she told the counter person, purse held nervously in her hands. "I don't know who to talk to, but I'm pretty sure I've just been approached by MI5, who claim to have been tracking me, and..."

The counter-clerk groaned, "Not AGAIN! Larry? Get the lads! We've got another MI5 cleanup on us."

There came *vast* groans of men tired of doing the same job again and again as the whole department stirred itself to action, going through well-rehearsed routines as they suited up.

"Name?" the man at the desk snapped at the witch before him, quill poised to copy.

"Hermione Granger," Jane replied, a little intimidated.

"Right, it'll be done in half an hour. You might want to stay in the magical world until then, lest they put an agent to following you we missed - happened a few times. Less, now that we've got official permission to use Imperio to get those types to erase their own records and such, but still it's a sticky operation. So we'd appreciate you staying out of the way."

"Alright," Jane nodded, then, biting her lower lip, appraised, "Uhm, they know I have a sister, so I should probably get her out of the way as well, shant I?"

The man snorted, not displeased at her, but plainly unhappy about the situation. "Least you had the wit to tell us. Right, got to wipe them concerning your whole family, then. Granger just became a word *they* won't utter again! You go get your sister. We'll handle this."

Tired Obliviators in surprisingly accurate muggle government costumes were now filing out past her towards the floo system.

Hermione quickly made herself scarce.

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

Well, that's the end of Lucius, and the Marauders prove their worth by wiping out a sizable fraction of the Dark Lord's supporters in one, fell swoop.

Also we hear why St Trinians isn't investigated for all of the crimes going on there daily.

And sorry, but it just strikes me that counter-espionage agencies, poised to twig on to anything the least bit out of place, would actually stumble across the magical world fairly often. So, the only reasonable thing to suppose is, if they have maintained their secrecy at all, then the Obliviator squads must be downright tired of (but very, VERY good at) wiping the minds of those spies, and eliminating records of their discoveries.

Merry Christmas to all. 


	12. Chapter 12

Double Time Trouble  
Chapter Twelve

by Skysaber  
aka Lionheart

OoOoO

Hermione Jane could not have been more surprised to see the elderly Malfoy house elf pop into place beside her, except by what it immediately did and said.

"Head of House is dead, long live the new Head," it said, bowing to her.

She nearly choked on her waffle.

Glancing over to Hermione Ann, she was no help, too busy being amused with a 'now you know how I feel when you girls do it to me' grin on her face.

Coughing to resume her ability to breathe, Hermione Jane managed to swallow before letting loose the undignified squeak, "WHAT?"

"You is new Head of House Malfoy," the elf repeated, still not rising from its bow.

"But..." she glanced at Ann, momentarily at a loss. "Why me? How?" she sputtered back to the elderly elf whose gaze was still respectfully locked on the floor. "Girls can't become Heads of House, can they?"

"All boyses be dead," the elf expounded, "Or you be right, no girlses even considered. It next go to matron, only she not capable. She no respond, nor could elfses rouse her. So next it be going to yous, who being eldest. Long Live the Head!" it repeated.

Jane gazed helplessly towards her sister, who was too busy laughing to be any help.

OoOoO

Hermione Jane was now in her ninth hour of being Head of House GRANGER!

That had been the first thing she'd changed. The second had been the house seal, and third had been the motto.

She'd agreed with Tina, the Malfoy line needed to end! And, since physically it had already done so, now all that was left to do was wipe it out spiritually, erasing its legacy. And since the wealth, the gold and properties and so on, would still exist no matter who owned them, she felt justified in transferring everything to herself.

It was all very complicated and technical, but House Malfoy had just died, and left in its place, holding all properties, power and principals, House Granger. And boy hadn't THAT been a headache!

She was quickly settling into it, though.

Documents had been left behind detailing all the house businesses, property and interests. House elves had dutifully made copies of all of the papers involved in the Malfoy family's legal activities for the house archives, and had sent new copies of those up from storage for her to read, while the records of illegal dealings, journals of blackmail and the like, had been safeguarded and warded against theft and fire and any number of curses.

Lucius had not been the only head of house to be attacked in his study, or to perish in flames. And for the house to thrive, the new controller had to know things, so provisions had been in place over generations. Detailed journals had been kept of just about everything, which she was currently devouring, just like the voracious bookworm she was.

Where else was she to find details on the things she had to change?

The little elf hadn't lied, though, when he'd said no girl would even have been considered for the Head post if any boy had been alive. Even if there had been a close male relative of another family line, she'd never have been promoted to this task.

But, thankfully for her at least, the dearth of males as a direct result of the mass Death Eater die-offs of last night had left a clear opening for her.

Hundreds of male purebloods had died, and what males survived, generally younger sons and other non-inheriting relatives, were needed by their own houses. Contrary to most people's expectations, joining two houses under one head generally destroyed the lesser of the two, ending that line, and so was avoided whenever possible - even if that meant putting a girl in control!

Hermione had then, of course, done exactly what those protocols had been intended to avoid, and put an end to the House Malfoy. Okay, all it truly amounted to was a legal name change, and the switching about of most policies, but the spirit of what had been intended was the same.

Proper magical adoptions had been performed, using Hermione's natural parents, her hair was now back to brown, and that was that. None of the members of The Great And Noble House of Granger bore any Malfoy blood, so the old line was as good as gone. The only thing left of the Malfoys were some memories, and not even terribly many of them, as their close friends and associates had come down with a nasty case of dead last night.

However, in the act of cleaning up her own house, Hermione was startled yet again when she uncovered the major influence file, and discovered just how many families were under obligation to the Malfoys.

Or, rather, Grangers.

She was still going over that information hours later, absently eating sandwiches the house elves had brought up, only to be quite surprised to see a Ministry owl fly in. And when she had detached and read the note, discovered the last thing she'd ever expected to receive in her life: a summons to appear at the next Wizengamot session as a voting member.

Great. It was set for early in the morning, too, and Hermione Jane had already worked more than a sixteen hour day just setting her new family straight. And, if some of the secret Malfoy 'political strategy' pages could be believed (and why not? They'd been the most politically influential house save for Dumbledore alone, for years), she had a long night of work ahead of her just getting ready for the event.

Because when she first walked through those Wizengamot doors, certain details would be recorded about both her and her family that would set the standard of her influence there forevermore. And if she failed to make a VERY significant showing, then with the lack of Lucius and other major players, now deceased, that would set the stage for Dumbledore to rule uncontested for the foreseeable future.

NOT something she was willing to just let happen!

Rather than see everyone she cared for tortured to death 'For The Greater Good' Hermione sighed, then set about her new workload with a determined air. It would be a long night, and she sent the elves for some Pepper-Up potion. Letters immediately got sent off via owls to various magical families under obligation to her that were vulnerable to this, demanding meetings tonight. Lucius had not had so much influence due to bribery alone. He, like every other major player, had a number of votes in his pocket. Now she could afford to take over many of those to use for her own purposes, although surprisingly not all.

The mass deaths last night had released a good number of votes Lucius held, as the very people he held under coercion no longer existed in mortal form. However, just as many, if not more, families had become vulnerable to her, seeing those mass deaths had removed all of the male heirs to those lines, leaving them unable to defend themselves against other, lesser, bits of influence they could otherwise have ignored.

She might have had more sympathy for them, save for the facts that these people had all been active Death Eater families, or else they wouldn't have been part of last night's die-off, and it was their dealings with Lucius in the first place that left them vulnerable to his games.

Those letters sent, she was off to St. Trinians to collect on those Life Debts owed to her. It was now two-thirds of the school, and binding those people as retainers, forcing magical adoptions upon them, and registering them as 'wands subject to the Head of House's control' would set her up in a position nobody else had enjoyed in centuries, as being in control of a small army always carried political weight, no matter what your environment.

Of course, none of those girls could actually *use* wands, or at least not yet, but some early experiments with the babies she'd removed from St. Trinians proved that magical adoptions to the right parents (and hers qualified) did give a functioning magical core, and that was all the census takers would care for.

And better still, the adoptions made it legal, unlike Dumbledore's Order or Voldy's Death Eaters, as they would simply be members of a family that she was head of.

Among the Malfoy papers left behind to train a new head of house in event the last one had perished without passing on those skills, was a very old book that referenced what the author called the four cornerstones of power. One of those was wealth, along with the ability to produce it. Another was military might, and while she had the first, shortly after this trip to St. Trinians she'd at least be able to give the impression of the second.

The author had listed support of the clergy as third, and she could tell that section of the old manual had not been read very often, probably not for generations. But on giving it a short skim to familiarize herself with the general concept, had discovered what the man had meant by this being important was in their use as foils to control one's reputation and public opinion. So she'd just mentally crossed out 'clergy', put in 'media' instead, and put it back on the table as a viable route to establishing or maintaining power.

Lastly had been the holding of important titles, and while the man had meant and talked about noble courts and obtaining the ear and confidence of the monarch, she could see the exact same thing applying equally to the Ministry and Minister today.

The rest of that book was about strategies, using any one of those forms of power to make inroads to acquire the others. But as she left to go collect those owing her life debts from out of St. Trinians, it struck her that while the Malfoys had possessed oodles of the first, and had been making serious inroads into the fourth, she was adding to that the second. However, the undisputed master of the third form of power in their world was Dumbledore.

She'd have to see if she could do something more about correcting that.

OoOoO

The halls of St. Trinians were as stable and quiet as they'd ever been, which meant that just about everyone had passed out due to the after-battle party, naturally.

But still, that made it easy to collect everyone she needed, using charms to track them and levitating their comatose bodies onto cots she'd transfigured, that were in turn stacked like cord wood on a carpet that she'd enchant as a portkey. Straps would hold the girls in, and the cots themselves would be bolted down.

Doing portkey travel to this many stoned or drunken girls ought to put the Vomit Comet to shame, of course. But that was a price she was willing to pay for fast and easy transport of so many dangerous and rebellious people.

The rebellious part wouldn't last much longer after she'd bound them with magic. But every one of those girls would have died without her intervention, so she, and magic, considered that a fair exchange.

Hermione would even do what she could to ensure these girls got a better life out of the bargain, as these *were* friends, after a fashion, and she didn't want to turn into a copy of Dumbledore, where the lives of those who assisted her became meaningless, a cost to doing business.

No, they might not like shaping up at first, but does anyone like boot camp? Nobody ever said it was pleasant, but it did shape good soldiers, and that was what she needed right now.

As Hermione departed, mind already filled with plans for a mass adoption ritual, planning to just transfigure the carpet they all laid on into the necessary pattern for the ritual circle, and then following that up with the poison neutralizers so they'd become immune to the vast amount of drugs they regularly got stoned on so they wouldn't any more be destroying those minds she was going to be relying on, the St. Trinians Headmistress secretly caught sight of her mass kidnapping and smiled, before vanishing off into her office to approve the hundred or so transfers of those waiting to join their rambunctious little death trap, now that they had room for them at last.

It looked like their little witch was going to get in some early practice after all, and decided not to spook her victims into complicating the issue simply by incarcerating them beforehand.

A true St. Trinians girl! And, like all of her successful prodigies, it was a shame to see her go.

The Headmistress would have followed mandatory standard procedure and sent the girl's file to law enforcement, to keep a lifelong eye on her, but, as with all of the most successful of her students, the girl had apparently stolen her own school records before going away.

It warmed the cockles of her heart to see those lessons had taken root so deeply. Ones like that would always go far.

OoOoO

Next morning Hermione Jane arrived at the Ministry chambers bang on time - a mistake, of course. She'd forgotten how lazy and inconsistent wizards were. The actual meeting would not be starting for several hours. Although that did grant her time to establish her bonafides, giving the clerk receiving her papers coughing fits as his eyebrows went to his hairline over the long list of names she would be voting for - along with the much longer list of retainers.

A certified list of armed retainers that long, willing to fight in defense of the person presenting the list, had not been seen in many a century. But, as she pointed out, it was perfectly legal, as they were all family.

The Ministry clerk nearly choked on his spit in surprise when he learned she was right.

The chief topic under investigation for the meeting, of course, were the mass die offs of what was now the night before last. The Ministry had even intercepted one of the unopened packages, and managed to retrieve the contents without killing themselves.

Now they were trying to figure out what those odd shaped things were.

"Can you identify these?" a Ministry official pled, holding forth the muggle hand grenades to an eighteen-appearing Hermione as she entered the voting chamber. Apparently they had been asking everyone just on the slim hope of getting a lucky fluke of someone who had the oddball, fringe expertise to actually know what those objects were.

Fat chance of that in a chamber packed with pureblood lords.

Seeing the man so desperate to find somebody, anybody, who was enough of a magic creature genius to tell him they were an odd kind of metallic egg, or an herbologist to identify them as a magic fruit, or a master of obscure potions to tell him they were an odd form of potion bottle native to some other country they could then blame for all of this, she decided to play with him.

"Ah, yes. Muggles call them Love Pineapples, and send them to each other to show how much they care," Hermione told him with a straight face, then smiled disarmingly. "I can swear to that under veritaserum if you like."

She left the man looking even more confused and befuddled than before.

OoOoO

The Headmaster of Hogwarts paced in his private chambers and scowled.

That Wizengamot meeting had not gone well.

In retrospect, it was obvious why it shouldn't. Mass deaths among powerful and influential families was the fastest way to great upsets in politics. Old families vanished, their power blocks disintegrated, old familiar resources fell into new hands who had fresh ideas on how to use them, once-dependable alliances shifted or took on new forms, and among all of this the known quantities departed, to be replaced by fresh new faces, as once-obscure family lines got catapulted to the forefront of power politics. Quite a few eager innocents looked startled today to find themselves at the reigns of real power.

And some of those catapulted from obscurity into power, like the Granger family, now held quite a bit of it through accident or inheritance, and would surely need his direction as to how he required them to wield it before his carefully orchestrated game could once more resume its march towards progress.

A bother, but then what could one expect? New players to the game always brought with them new ideas, new headaches, until properly dealt with, tamed and brought to heel. Why did the young always feel they had to fix something?

Now he would be forced to ride herd on what was almost a brand new Wizengamot, so the ideas that he would have to stamp out would no doubt multiply and try to flourish, for a time. He had seen this once before, on a lesser scale, back during the troubles with Grindelwald, when a surprising quantity of unexpected deaths among the old families had caused a scene of political chaos not unlike this one.

And that was the real reason he'd taken down his old friend.

These new players at politics could and would be indoctrinated. However, his opponents always got to some of them first. New power blocks would form. Old allies would become new enemies, and yet surely he'd find new friends among the heirs to old opponents. All of that was as anticipated. He'd lived through it once before. But, if the old man was honest with himself, what truly annoyed him was how the political landscape of Magical Britain, once as familiar to him as Hogwarts' welcoming halls, and as dependable and predictable as an old pair of socks, was now strange to him. It had become a wild, untamed territory, and what he begrudged most was the effort it was going to take to subdue it to his will once more.

At any other time he might have welcomed a challenge, but it would take a great investment of time when he was already quite busy. Worse, they were already dealing with a crisis to the future of all purebloods where he required all of his influence to bring about the desired end mandated by The Greater Good.

Dumbledore looked chagrined as reports came back from the auror forces investigating the deaths of hundreds of purebloods, almost universally reporting that hundreds and hundreds of muggleborns, halfbloods and muggles had been kept as slaves in those residences.

That was going to serious complicate his efforts to get the surviving purebloods pardoned!

It was all very well and good for the upper ranks of society to get a little rambunctious from time to time. It kept the blood flowing and reminded everyone of who was on top. But to leave witnesses?

It was one thing to get the purebloods off when all that was left behind were dead bodies or those driven insane so they could not testify. A simple imperious excuse worked fine in those cases. But when there were survivors who could testify, and explain who saw what and who cast what would severely complicate the issue.

There were, for example, a wide number of spells requiring an emotional content before they could be cast. The Unforgivables numbered among those, but most of the best dark curses did as well, and any witch or wizard with the least brain understood that while the imperious could control actions, it could not produce the emotions necessary to cast those spells. So, ipso facto, if witches and wizards were caught casting those spells, they could not have been under the imperious curse.

No, with living witnesses to report who cast what, where and why, getting what purebloods remained forgiven of their childish little antics was going to be vastly more complicated - in a fresh and chaotic Wizengamot that had already slipped from control!

Dumbledore groaned. If only he still had a decent slush fund for bribes! But while he had wealth, his income had dropped down to the pittance he actually earned, which was as nothing compared to those donations that had once generously supported him.

His new batch of servants were not nearly so gifted with political influence and wealth; which was why none of them had been among his original followers. They were his second string only because they'd been plainly inferior, not deserving of inclusion back when he'd still controlled the first batch.

And that inability of his new followers limited his options.

No, until he had an income on par with a small nation again, he could not control politics with a bag full of coins, as he once had. Nor would his arguments carry themselves on nothing but the weight of his reputation anymore, either, as dozens of his former supporters held votes on the Wizengamot - votes they'd once used at his request, but now were turned wholly and implacably against him, tearing out the core of what had once been his voting block.

And worse yet, those desertions had caused other heads, the fresh and young new faces among them, to wonder why Dumbledore's most loyal followers now couldn't stand to look at him. Stories were getting told, and worse, they were the truth! How was he to handle that scene of political crisis and save the pureblood lords from their crimes at the same time?

But then, no sooner had he asked himself the question than Albus had his answer, and he smiled.

It was so obvious! Why hadn't he done this before?

OoOoO

"Severus."

"Yes, my lord?" the potions master knelt with his face towards the ground.

The oily voice of Voldemort was smooth, but the furthest thing from reassuring. "It has come to my attention that there are several spies within my ranks, reporting on my movements to our enemies. Do you have anything to add about that?"

"My lord.." Snape began.

But Voldemort went on as though not having heard him. "Hundreds of purebloods died last night, Severus. The majority of our forces, in fact. Now, who, I wonder, had access to our ranks, was a legilimancer who could have learned their identities, and had regular contact that he might have passed that information along to our enemies?"

Snape spent a moment in paralyzed silence, frozen by his own fear.

"Ah." Voldemort sighed. "As I suspected. It's so hard to assassinate someone when you have not been introduced socially. Anyone can attack anyone else, but only a friend or ally can betray you. After all, 'It is necessary to get behind someone in order to stab them in the back.' Why did you betray me, Severus?"

As he opened his mouth, desperate to answer, Snape's excuse choked off into a scream.

What followed in the next half hour made it the most painful of Snape's life. Voldemort was an expert. There were purely mental tortures in there, as well as physical, and mixtures of them both as he was simultaneously broken in every aspect. This wasn't just an execution, it was a lesson on why no Death Eater should fear their enemies more than they feared their lord himself, and hardened men soiled themselves at the display.

Snape's mind broke not long into this, but he was simply Obliviated each time to start the game of breaking him anew. He was well into his third bought of torment induced insanity when the incongruous sound of applause caught the attention of everyone in the chamber.

Eyes went to the source, and there stood Dumbledore, his robes as brilliant an eyesore as usual, a merry expression on his face as he applauded the Dark Lord's torture technique. "Oh, Bravo! Bravo, Tom! I never should have thought of using a badger so ironically. It brings tears to the eyes for mirth, that Severus should have tortured the badger house at Hogwarts for so long, only to receive worse at the hands of their emblem. Bravo!"

Sixty wands, representing every Death Eater missed by last night's attack, now pointed toward the old man, who paid it all no heed as he calmly walked forwards toward the throne, stepping over the bleeding potions master as he did so, as if his 'dear friend' was nothing more than an unpleasant stain on the floor. "Oh, Tom. I can't even tell you how proud you make an old man. But enough of the pleasantries. I'm afraid I find myself here on far more distressing business."

Voldemort would've cocked an eyebrow at the old man if he still had one, seeing as how Dumbledore was now surrounded by a veritable forest of Death Eater wands. Amusement clipped his tones, as he spoke. "You came to defeat me, here at the source of my power?"

Dumbledore's face and voice were genuinely genial as he waved that suggestion off. "Oh, no Tom. Never. You do far too important a work. Why, I am among your greatest supporters," he said, flooring half the room. "Why do you think I pretend to oppose you, then do everything in my power to hamstring your enemies from the inside? No, nothing is better than to have your enemy flail about incompetently, and I have been doing that for you all along, leading your enemies into your traps at every opportunity. No, you and I have no disagreements with each other, Tom. You do the work I would do myself if I were still a younger man. No, I'm afraid we have a more urgent problem. Almost none of the Death Eaters captured in these latest raids were without a company of slaves kept in their basements, and the testimonies of living victims is something I no longer have the power or influence to merely brush aside. Nor do I have have the money I once did for bribes. So I came here to call upon you for help to release them. I could allow you to rescue them, but then their good names would be ruined, and I no longer have access to where witnesses are being kept, having recently been cut off from most of my sources of information. So, if you wish those good pureblooded men and women rescued, it will have to be done the expensive way. I'll need roughly eighty thousand galleons apiece to grease the right palms to see these wonderful pureblood paragons set free."

Almost against his will, the Dark Lord's gaze tracked over to the replacement for Lucius, who was not half so competent, but the best he now had. The man responded with a bow, having already looked into the matter using Lucius' old network. "Unfortunately, my lord, my contacts have already estimated that they would require almost twice as much per person."

"Oh, there are still a few good people out there who recall their old headmaster fondly," Albus said with a genial smile, certain he was among friends and unafraid to show it.

Snape bled on the floor just inches behind his feet.

Voldemort still wasn't convinced. It had to be a trick. Leaning forward on his pale throne, he probed, signaling to a servant nearby, "You would betray your own side like this?"

For the first time this encounter, Dumbledore's face grew grave. "You mistake in that, Tom. Your purpose and mine are the same: domination of the world by purebloods, and magic rule of muggles. I merely led those fools who opposed you so I could ensure their deaths, as some had gifts and talents that could have endangered the cause. Now most of the very worst of them have escaped my command, and begun to fight you on their own, using the very genius and abilities I had always squashed before. That resulted in the slaughter of last night, and worse may yet follow, for they have only begun to tap their gifts. Now we must make sure of their destruction before they begin to gain momentum. No longer can I simply lead them like lambs to the slaughter. They must be hunted and destroyed before those blood traitors and halfbloods cause real damage to our pureblood society."

Dumbledore's harsh face faded, and his eyes brimmed with emotion. "Can I even tell you how many times I put down initiatives to remove our ancient, pureblood rights or, worse, to establish equal hiring measures for blood-filth at the Ministry? No, things are getting out of hand, Tom, and it is time we unite our forces, if not openly, then at least secretly, and combine to wipe out those who would change our society to benefit mudblood filth!"

Voldemort himself could not have poured more pure emotion into a recruitment speech. He smiled, bringing forth the tray of fist-sized rubies he'd signaled for earlier. "You intrigue me, old man. Here. This should be enough for the bribes you need. Let us see if you can be as true to our goals in deed as you have just been in word."

Albus was back to smiling as he accepted the golden tray of jewels. "I am gratified to be working together with great minds such as yours, Tom. I'll see our fellow purebloods free shortly. Then perhaps we can coordinate, my information with your followers, to wipe out the halfbreed filth once and for all."

Dumbledore spun about on one heel and, once more stepping over Snape without a downward glance or even a word, made his way back out of the throne room, leaving Voldemort to wonder if there was really any point to finishing off the spy after all.

He waved dismissively towards the still raggedly breathing body. "Get this out of my sight." He gave a cruel chuckle, "And fix it up. If his master dithers, it can be for round two of the same. If not, he could be a valuable liaison between us."

OoOoO

"So, how is the Hero of the Revolution and his lovely mother, Hmm?" James Potter came home ready to shower his beloved wife and their son with truly deserved affection.

But that night had other plans, and though nursing Harry, Lily's attention was wholly on other things. "James, look at the portrait!"

James spun around. Truly, ever since establishing the network of safehouses built in trunks hidden in muggle post office boxes that their beloved ally Athena had suggested, he had been feeling safer than ever. But the framed object hanging above their mantle was neither a portrait, neither was it a conventional window. Sirius and he had worked together to make a one-way version of the two-way mirrors they'd once used in school, and enchanted a shop window overlooking their house on Godric's Hollow, then hung the receiving end over their mantle here in the safehouse they were now living.

What that mirror showed now was a large force of Death Eaters gathering around their old home, including a great many that had recently been pardoned by Albus.

James and Lily watched in silence as the scene played out. First, his own simulacrum came to the front door, shot out a few spells and triggered a handful of old-style traps they'd left around the place. None of that did very much good, of course, and the dummy went down to the Death Eater's combined spell-fire almost immediately. Then the Lily simulacrum came to one of the upstairs windows, looking out with fear on her face and a baby in her arms before ducking back inside. The force of Death Eaters naturally followed, although an equal force stayed outside, making sure to surround the house and cut off all exits so she couldn't get away.

The couple watching didn't need to see anything obvious to know that anti-portkey and anti-apparation wards had already gone up over the small home. That was a standard tactic, and part of any organized assault by Death Eaters.

Then the four crates of muggle TNT in the basement went off.

James smirked as the picture disappeared. But he could imagine the destruction. A fuse lit by a magic candle that only lit when his simulacrum was destroyed had been the trigger for that trap, and only a few seconds worth of fuse had been used. Just enough, really, for a fast moving force of Death Eaters to storm the house and get within the jaws of that trap.

"The sad part about this," James whispered quietly, after they'd stared at the blank mirror for a while, "is that I don't even think they know what they are trying to achieve. The purebloods already control every aspect of the Ministry, our economy, the magical education system... there's no power left for them to gain. They already control every aspect of our society. So what are they trying to achieve?"

Lily shook her own head sadly, before transferring her attention to Harry. "It's Darwinism, pure and simple, honey. Eugenics, the philosophy of breeding people for good results, is central to evolution. If you don't practice the first, you don't really believe in the latter. And, if you ask any animal breeder they'll tell you to produce superior breeding stock, you've got to eliminate the weaker animals from the gene pool. So, racism and genocide are central to evolutionary beliefs. You can't logically separate them. Without 'Survival of the Fittest' there is no evolution. If you believe in evolution, for it to stop ends the whole point of existence. So they believe the strong *must* eliminate the weak, that their existence is an insult to life itself, and only by preventing those 'lesser creatures' from breeding and polluting their gene pool will the fate of their race improve. So really, they want exactly what Hitler and his Nazi's wanted, the total elimination of 'lesser species' of humanity. And, like every egocentric maniac, they believe themselves to be the perfect examples of the superior form of life that must survive."

James smirked. "Yet they find themselves being the ones eliminated."

Lily smirked also. "I think the real irony is these proud purebloods are such loyal adherents to a very muggle philosophy. If you believe in spirits or souls, and as kids at Hogwarts we interact with them daily, then the entire basis of evolution is ruined. You cannot believe in an immortal soul and evolution simultaneously. They are opposite beliefs. The philosophies that support the one utterly reject the other in both cases. Either our capacity for souls was created by the same Being who created us, or they cannot exist. There is no provision for how spirits come about by accident. Serious science won't even touch the subject. So that they are so drowned in their Darwinist ideals that 'lesser races' must be eliminated, when they know the primary principles behind that belief are false, is utter hypocrisy of the worst order."

"And that," James toasted her a glass, "is purebloods all over."

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

It is strange how the oddest chance comment can spark you to new work on something old again. In this case, it was someone asking the question of what Hermione Jane was going to do with the Malfoy Headship, now that both Lucius and Draco were gone, or if she was even going to get it. And, well, that kicked off ideas as I thought about the question myself.

All of the Malfoy males were dead. Narcissa was unavailable, having been petrified, with James and the Marauders killing off hundreds of Death Eaters last chapter there would be few if no cousins available to take over, and that left Hermione Jane the eldest.

And, it must be said, delivered quite a swift kick to Dumbledore's political anthill.


End file.
